The Wall Came Tumbling Down

On Saturday, August 19, three protest groups descended upon Hot Springs.  Putting these groups together is like making a bomb.  Thanks to much prayer, God's mercies, and excellent law enforcement, no violence erupted.  I attended a couple of prayer gatherings that morning, and during those gatherings, the Holy Spirit nudged me to address racism in my sermon the next morning.  It was a Communion Sunday, so we were coming to the Lord's Table.  This is where the Spirit led me.  This is longer than my typical blog, but a number of people encouraged me to get this out there where more could read it.  I did not print the biblical text, but I encourage you to read it before you read this sermon.  The fact that this is almost a week later shows my hesitation, but here it is.  I hope it helps those who take time to read it.

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I had planned to go a different direction today as we prepare to come to the Lord’s Table.  But in light of Charlottesville, the event that happened in our own city yesterday, and a couple of prayer meetings I attended on Saturday morning, the Lord changed my direction.  I invite you to open your Bible this morning to Ephesians 2:11-21.          

Grace Thomas grew up in Birmingham, married in the 1930s, and moved to Georgia.  She was an office worker for state government but decided she wanted more.  She took night classes and got a law degree.  And then, in 1954, she had the nerve to run for governor.  Unlike the other eight candidates, Grace argued that the just rendered verdict in the Supreme Court case Brown vs. Board of Education was a just ruling.  That desegregation and equality in education opportunities for black children was a good thing.  On election day, she came in dead last.  Her family hoped she got that out of her system.

She didn’t.  She decided to run for governor again in 1962 as the Civil Rights Movement was heating up.  One day in that campaign, Grace made an appearance in the small town of Louisville, Georgia. In those days, the centerpiece of the town square in Louisville was not a courthouse or a war memorial but an old slave market, a tragic and evil place where human beings had once been bought and sold like cattle or cotton or any other commodity. Grace chose the slave market as the site for her campaign speech.  As she stood on the very spot where slaves had been auctioned, a hostile crowd of storekeepers and farmers gathered to hear what she would say. “The old has passed away,” she began, “and the new has come." Gesturing to the market, she said, “This place represents all about our past over which we must repent.  A new day is here, a day when Georgians white and black can join hands to work together.”

This was provocative talk in 1962 Georgia.  Her talk riled the crowd.  “Are you a communist?” a heckler shouted at her.

Grace paused in midsentence. “No,” she said softly, “I am not.”

“Well, then, where’d you get those blankety-blank ideas?”

Grace thought for a minute, and then she pointed to the steeple of a nearby church. “I got them over there,” she said, “in Sunday school.”[1]

Apparently, these ideas haven’t been taught in enough Sunday Schools and churches.  Even though it’s always been at least under the surface, racism is making a comeback in our culture—even among some who claim to be racist in the name of Jesus.  In case you’re not sure what Jesus and the Bible teach about these things, let’s briefly review this morning before we come to the Lord’s Table.  Hear the word of the Lord … (read the text).

I

Paul was dealing with a kind of racism in his day.  It wasn’t a black-white thing; it was a Jew-Gentile thing.  When Paul planted the church in Ephesus, the church began with a mixture of Jews and Gentiles.  But like most churches in the Empire, the Ephesian church was predominantly Gentile.  Jews referred to themselves as "the circumcision," and, in an ethnic putdown, referred to the Gentiles as "the uncircumcised."—probably employed in the same spirit of today's racial slurs.  It was not a descriptive term, it was an insult.  It was name-calling.  It was a putdown spoken from one who thinks he’s superior to one he considers inferior.  “We’re the circumcised.  They’re the uncircumcised.”  You have to look down your nose to say it just right.  Paul felt the need to address this barrier to fellowship in the church—this barrier, this wall between Jew and Gentile Christians who both claimed Christ as Savior and Lord.  The animosity worked both ways.

The Jews considered the Gentiles to be pagans.  Gentiles would bow down to anything as a god.  Gentiles lived by a very loose moral standard in areas of sexual conduct.  Gentiles had little concern over all the cleanliness issues that were important to Jews.  The Jews looked down their noses at Gentiles.  They believed the Gentiles were an inferior race.  That didn’t go away when Jews became Christian.  One of the earliest questions the newly birthed church had to resolve when God started adding Gentiles to the church was this: Does a Gentile have to become a Jew before he can become a Christian?  An entire chapter of Acts is devoted to a conference designed to answer that question.  Of course, the answer was no.  But many Jewish believers still considered Gentiles their inferiors in matters of religion and culture.  It had been bred into them.  That’s the Jews.

On the other hand, Gentiles viewed the Jews as weird, odd, bizarre even.  Jews worshipped a God they couldn't see and couldn't reproduce in the form of an idol.  They were morally strict.  They were very picky about what they would eat.  They carried a religious chip on their shoulders.  Who are these people?

There was an “us against them” mentality on the part of both Jews and Gentiles.  Racism had them by the heart.  A huge wall stood between them—a wall built by a sense of racial superiority and racial hatred.  That’s the way they were.  Those are the attitudes they brought with them when they came to Christ and the church. 

II

But Jesus changes things.  Jesus knocks down the wall that divides the races.  He pushes against that wicked wall with those nail-scarred hands until it fractures and comes tumbling down.  Paul is writing to a church where racial tension was palpable.  And according to Paul, Jesus says, “Not in my house!  No racial walls in my house.”

People who don’t know Christ, those who are still dead in their sins and slave to their sins, some of them may well be racist and think little of it.  Usually it’s passed down from their parents.  They are blinded by their bigotry.  They are too blind to see that all of us are made in the image of God, too blind to see that basic human kindness and decency trumps racism.  They don’t know Christ.  The wall of racism may still stand firm in their hearts.

But when we are in Christ, the wall comes tumbling down.  It must.  There is no other option.  Jesus demands it.  Jesus won’t stand for racism among his people.  It’s a sin against God, a sin against one another, and a sin against love.  If you are in Christ and you harbor racial hatred in your heart, you need to repent.  Why would you want to gather up the rubble of a wall Jesus destroyed and build it back again?  Why would you want to work against the very Savior you profess to believe and love and follow?

Don’t you realize that we human beings are more alike than different, that we all share a common made-in-the-image-of God-humanity?  And among the things we have in common, two are central.

We are all sinners.  There is no racial supremacy or superiority.  Every race is comprised of sinners.  History makes that clear.  From unspeakable atrocities to intentional discrimination to arrogant smugness, every race has done their part to build walls and hurt others.  No race gets a pass. No race is better than another.  We are all sinners.  We all hold that in common.    

And we all hold this in common too: Jesus saves us all the same way.  He saves Jews and Gentiles the same way.  He saves black people and white people the same way.  He saves Hispanics and Asians the same way.  We are saved through the blood of Jesus Christ.  There is no black Savior, no Hispanic Savior, no white Savior.  There’s just one Savior.  His name is Jesus, and he loves us all the same and gave himself for us all.  Do you think it takes more of Jesus’ blood to save people from other races than it takes to save you?

Jesus came to tear down the dividing wall.  Don’t try to rebuild something that Jesus tore down.

III

Do this instead: do what you can to love all people like Jesus loves people.  Be kind.  Build friendships.  Serve one another.

Around 1910 or 1911 a tornado swept through Union Church, Mississippi, where my grandfather was managing his father’s farm.  The twister damaged some of the farm buildings.  And when the storm was over my grandfather, Samuel Tucker McCallum, went to check on the black families who lived on the place.  When he arrived at one of the houses, a mother was wailing in grief. “My baby’s gone! My baby’s gone! The storm blew my baby away,” she cried.  Granddaddy did his best to comfort her.  He tried to give her hope by telling her that he had heard stories of children who had survived such things, and that he would go make careful search for the child.

And sure enough, he found the baby about fifty yards from the house.  He was under a small tree, laying on his back in a puddle of water, crying to beat the band, trembling and scared, but apparently unhurt.  My granddaddy scooped that baby up in his strong arms, carried him back to his mama as quickly as he could, and turned her tears into an ear to ear grin.  Mourning was turned to dancing.  And that boy’s mama was so thrilled and so grateful to get her baby back alive that she changed the baby’s name right there on the spot.  She said, “From now on this baby’s name is Sam.”  Get it?  That's my grandfather's name.  And from that time forward and until his death, that boy was known by all as ‘Cyclone Sam.’

Cyclone Sam grew up to be a farmer in the area. He lived to a ripe old age and used to bring vegetables to some of my grandfather’s cousins who lived in Jackson.  He never forgot what my grandfather did for him and his family.  Once he even made a trip to Jackson when he heard my Aunt Martha would be there so he could greet her and personally thank her for what her father, Sam McCallum, had done for him so many years ago.  When Cyclone Sam died, my Aunt Martha and Aunt Nettie went to his funeral.  When the ushers heard their names, they were seated with Cyclone Sam's family and enjoyed a wonderful meal and visit with them after the service.  No wonder my dad, a southern man raised in Mississippi and Lake Village, Arkansas, taught his sons that since everybody is equal in God’s eyes, they ought to be equal in ours.  That’s what his daddy taught him.

And this truth wasn’t taught through protests and demonstrations.  It was taught by word and example.  Good old Cyclone Sam.  It’s amazing how simple acts of compassion, love, and friendship open doors of relationship that transcend the color of one’s skin or ethnicity.  And what my granddaddy did on a small scale …

IV

Jesus did on a cosmic scale.  And I pray he keeps on doing it.  A cyclone of racism is sweeping through our land again.  It’s tearing apart lives and families and our nation.  God hears the cries of his people.  And he sends a Jewish Messiah named Jesus to find us and save us and get us home.  Jesus came.  He ministered to anybody and everybody—Jew and Gentile and Samaritan, every outcast, sinner, and tax collector.  He loved them all and he loved them the same.  But in order to complete his salvation mission, he had to express his love in more than healing and teaching and kindness; he had to die.  And all the powers that be got into the act of killing him.  The Jewish leadership pushed for crucifixion.  The Gentile Romans pounded the nails through his hands and feet, all in the Passover presence of people from all over the known world of the day: many colors, many languages.  You may be thinking, “How could they kill Jesus?”  They?  Just because we weren’t in Jerusalem that day, we all took part in the lynching and the killing.  Our sins killed him.  Jesus was no victim here.  He could have said no to the cross at any point.  But he didn’t.  Our need is too great.  His love is too strong.  The cross was the only way to save us.  Jesus had to die—to die for our sins by taking our sins, including racism, on himself, bear their penalty, and break their power.

At the end of that dark Friday, it looked like sin won.  On Saturday, it looked like sin won.  But on Sunday, Jesus rose from the dead.  The penalty and power of sin was finished.  The walls that separate us came tumbling down.  Jesus won.  Truth won.  Love won.  And when Jesus comes again even the presence of sin will be banished forever, and as brothers and sisters in one big happy family, every nation, tribe, and tongue will sing Christ’s praise around his throne: “Worthy, worthy is the Lamb who was slain to save us all!”

Until that day, Jesus is still moving about the earth, finding lost children and bringing them home to a Father who changes their name: from dead in sin to alive in Christ; from lost and condemned to saved and justified; from sinner to saint; from wall-builder to bridge-builder; from racist to one who loves like Christ.  He changes our name to Christian—little Christ.

IV

That’s why we come not to the Lord’s wall but to the Lord’s Table.  Walls divide.  Tables bring us together.  Walls say, “You belong on one side, I belong on the other.”  The Lord’s Table says, “There is a place for everyone at the same table.”  That’s right.  There is no Jewish Table, no Gentile table.  There is no black table, no table just for white people.  There is only one table for us all—the Lord’s Table.  And regardless of your skin color or your heritage, if Jesus has changed your name to Christian, there is a place at the Table for you.

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[1]As told by Thomas G. Long, Preaching from Memory to Hope (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009), 19-20. 

All He Ever Knew Was Love

Cayden Hughes Buttram was born along with his twin brother Cooper Andrew Buttrum on Monday night, July 10.  Cayden died on Wednesday, July 12.  Cayden’s parents, Lauren and Brad, knew he had an uphill battle.  A problem pregnancy, in utero issues that denied him needed nutrients, a premature birth at only 2 lbs, 13 oz, and the quick onset of an infection spelled trouble for Cayden.  His brother Cooper was a little bigger, had the necessary nutrients all along, and he is doing well.  But Cayden didn’t make it.

I don’t understand these things any more than you do.  Why does one twin live and the other die?  We know God knits us together in our mother’s womb.  We know we are fearfully and wonderfully made.  We know Jesus loves children … and then this.  As a pastor I’ve grieved with parishioners over a miscarriage and buried my share of babies.  Some, like Cayden, didn’t last long out of the womb.  Some fell victim to SIDS a year or two into life.  It’s all hard.  It all hurts.  It all leaves us with more questions than answers.

I woke up in the middle of the night with the Buttrums on my mind.  As I was laying there praying for the family, the Lord put a thought in my head about Cayden: “All he ever knew was love.”

                                                                                                                   

Since the pregnancy test came back positive, Cayden was loved—parents and doctors doing all the right things.

Upon his birth into this world on Monday, Cayden was loved.  Incubation, intubation, and IVs may not feel or look like love, but that’s what it is—love that fights for life and health and well-being.  There’s not a lot Mom, Dad, and family can do in this situation except pray and touch and speak life and love over the child.  That’s what they did.

And when Cayden shut his eyes in death on Wednesday, he was swept up into the arms of Jesus who loves him best of all.  I don’t know how all this works in heaven, but I do believe this: Cayden is experiencing the love of his Savior and the love of believing family that preceded him in death.  It is well with his soul.  And on the last day, his tiny body will be resurrected just like yours and mine.

In just two short days of life on this earth, all he ever knew was love.  He never experienced abuse of any kind.  He never dealt with the betrayal of a friend.  He never felt the sting of guilt over his sins.  Nobody ever broke his heart.  He never stood over the grave of a loved one who meant the world to him.  He never wrestled with feelings of failure.  I realize, as do you, that such things are all part of life, that they shape us into the persons we become, that wounds and scars hurt in the moment but can reap the benefits of maturity and a closer walk with Jesus.  Like his family, I wish Cayden could have lived a long full life.  But if you only get 28 weeks in the womb and two days in the world, all you ever know is love, and the only memories people have of you will be cherished ones, well … you’ve lived a pretty wonderful life.

Cayden, I can’t wait to meet you on the other side.

There's No Place Like Home

Well, we’re in.  Still unpacking boxes and deciding what goes where, but we’re in.  And, man, does it feel weird.  After 22 years in the same house, you know every creak and crack in the place.  You can practically move around with your eyes closed and still get where you’re going.  In the new place, I better keep my eyes open or I’ll run into walls and bump into stuff.  It’s going to take some time to get my bearings.

We loved our last home.  (Well, I had a love/hate relationship with it when I had to take care of the pool.)  We lived in that place for more than a third of our lives and more than half of our marriage.  We (that means Dayna) kept it in great.  It pays to have a wife who watches a lot of HGTV.  She always had some idea to make it better.

But a home is not so much about the floors and the roof and the curb appeal.  A home is about what goes on inside.  It’s about the memories.  And do we ever have memories associated with that place.  That’s the house where we celebrated high school and college graduations, the house where we celebrated the weddings of our children.  That’s the only house our seven grandkids know as Papa and Grammy’s house.  That’s the house where we spent 22 Christmases.  That’s the house where we prayed a lot of prayers, cried a lot of tears, and laughed more times than we can count.  That’s the house where our teenage kids brought their friends.  That’s the house where we watched a lot of Razorback and Cowboys and Orioles games.  That’s the house where we loved one cat and two dogs.  That’s the house where we spent five days without power during the great post-Christmas ice storm of 2000.  That’s the house where we always tried to keep Jesus at the center.  It’s been a good house.  It’s been our house.  I think it was Miranda Lambert who sang a song about “the house that built me.”  Well, this house didn’t build us, but our lives were shaped in numerous ways during our years there.

On Father’s Day weekend our whole family was together.  The kids wanted to say good-bye to the house.  We talked about some of our favorite memories in that house over the years.  The kids took a last look at their teenage rooms.  Everybody enjoyed the pool one more time.  It was more emotional than I thought it would be.

But now it’s time to move on, time to get a little better arranged space to accommodate our family of 13 when they are home.  It’s time to quit messing with a swimming pool loved by my wife, my kids, and my grandkids but not loved so much by me.  I don’t know how long we’ll live here.  I doubt it will be anywhere near 22 years.  In 22 years I’ll be 82 and my wife will be 80.  For all I know I’ll be dead.  We’ll make some memories in this new house, but it won’t be like the house in which you raise your kids.  My daughter summed it up pretty well before she left our house for the last time: “Every time I’ve come home since I left for college in 2000, I’ve always felt like I was coming to my house.  Now, I’ll feel like I’m coming to my parents’ house.”

And that’s where we are now: in her parents’ house.  Dayna is excited to make this house a home.  And she’ll get it done for sure.  I’m still a little depressed about the change.  But I’ll be okay.  Whether our address is Meadowmere Terrace or Blue Bell Court, as long as Dayna and Jesus are here it will be home.  That’s been good enough for almost 40 years.  It will be good enough till Jesus calls one of us to the home that’s really home, the home from which we will never move again.   

She's a Grand Old Flag

On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress of the United States adopted the stars and stripes as our national flag. That's why we call June 14 Flag Day. I usually let this day pass without much thought of our flag. Sometimes I don’t even realize it’s Flag Day till the day is past. I penned these reflections in 2017, a time of growing division in our country. It's worse now. I am not a "Christian nationalist." I am a Christian American. I love our country, but I do not worship our country. Nor do I fail to notice her many flaws. In fact, I worry about our country's future. We have no moral compass or common set of moral values anymore. We have largely told God, "We got this. We don't need you anymore." I fear that much of what we're seeing today is a result of God saying, "Okay, America, you can have your wish." But in spite of our moral, economic, border, narcissistic, and political corruption problems, I still love America. I still respect our flag. So despite failing to even remember Flag Day most years, I want to to pause for a few minutes and reflect on my memories of the United States flag in hopes they will prime the pump for your memories too.

Standing in my first grade class room, facing the flag in the corner, hand over my heart, saying with my class, “I pledge allegiance to the flag ….”

The flag at Meadowcliff Elementary School in Little Rock flying at half-mast in the days after President Kennedy was assassinated in November, 1963. That’s the first time I saw a flag at half-mast—but sadly, not the last.

Images of the flag-raisers on Iwo Jima after our brave Marines wrestled Mt. Suribachi away from the Japanese at the cost of much blood and death.

Taking my turn in sixth grade raising and lowering the flag at Branson Elementary School and learning how to fold it properly.

Watching fuzzy black-and-white images of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin staking our flag on the moon in 1969. I understand it’s still there today.

Feeling anger and sadness as crowds in Tehran burned our flag after seizing our embassy there and taking 52 hostages in November 1979.

Watching the USA Hockey Team in the 1980 Olympics waving our flag after their improbably gold medal. “Do you believe in miracles?” Al Michaels uttered after we beat the Soviets in the semifinals.

The Lee’s Summit, Missouri, High School Band belting out “Stars and Stripes Forever” at their annual spring concert.  It always brought everyone to their feet.

The uncountable numbers of little flags attached to trucks and cars in the days after September 11, 2001.

A display in the Smithsonian of the tattered flag that flew over Fort McKinley—the very flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write our national anthem during the War of 1812.

Numerous flag draped caskets at the graveside services of veterans—including the flag that draped my father’s casket, now folded into a crisp triangle that we keep in our home.

The presentation of the colors at numerous ballgames and thousands of voices singing The Star Spangled Banner.

Those are some of my memories. Not everything done under our flag has been good and right. But on balance, our flag has represented some of the noblest, highest ideals in human history. We have not achieved all our ideals. America continues to work out its promise of liberty and justice for all. Still, we are blessed to live in the good old U.S.A. Our freedom has been bought with the price of others' blood. I encourage you on this Flag Day 2017 to take a moment, remember, and give thanks.

I'm Finally Above-Average at Something

Hooray!  I learned this week that I am finally above average at something.  For a guy who’s spent his life hovering around average this is really encouraging news!  I’m average size.  I’ve always been an average athlete.  I’m an average husband, an average father, grandfather, golfer, and singer.  My birth certificate says my middle name is Scott.  I’m surprised my middle name is not Average.  It could have been.  Hi, I’m John Average McCallum II.  I guess that means I’m average twice-over.  Average.  That’s not so bad.  Most everybody is average or they wouldn’t be considered … average.

Ok, I’ll confess that I do have some bright spots.  I have always been a slightly above-average student.  And while I’m not trying to be prideful, I’ve always thought I’m a slightly above-average pastor.  Now I know I am.  In fact, it’s been scientifically confirmed.  According to a March 1, 2017, report on Barna.com the average age of American pastors is 54.  Hey, I’m 60!  Boom goes the dynamite—I’m six points higher than average.  (I wonder if I should ask for a raise.)

What’s good news for me may not be such good news for the church.  On the one hand it could mean that America’s churches are being led mostly by seasoned, experienced veterans who bring a lifetime’s wisdom to bear on the work.  But on the other hand, it could mean that America’s churches are being led mostly by a bunch of crotchety old fogies.  Each church with an above-average pastor will have to figure that out for itself.

The sad thing about this report is that while the median age of pastors in 1992 was 44, only one in seven pastors today is under 40.  Yikes!  We need some younger pastors.  Pray, please, that God will call more young people into pastoral ministry.

But in the meantime, I’ll try not to gloat about being an above-average pastor.  Gloating is not in order anyway unless my gloating is in Christ.  I may be a C+ person and a B- pastor, but Jesus is an A+ Savior who can take even below average people and do extraordinary things through their lives.  And that doesn't just go for pastors, that goes for us all.     

Single-Minded Focus

Please take a look at the picture.  The first time I saw it, I was sure it was photo-shopped.  But no. According to the Washington Post, this is a picture in real time. Theunis Wessels of Three Hills, Alberta, Canada was caught in the act by his wife Cecilia who snapped the picture this past Friday.  "I was keeping an eye on it," he said.

Twitter blew up over the picture with some great responses:

- No worries.  The fence will keep it out.

- In "mower" danger than he thought.

- The house may be gone but the lawn is immaculate.

- At least he won't have to worry about sweeping up the grass clippings.

- "Well, I don't see anyone else offering to mow the lawn."

- Metaphor for the Trump administration.

- When the wife asks you to do your chore or else, there's he*# to pay, a lot worse than that tornado.

- You think you're awesome but you're not mow your lawn in a tornado awesome.

You know what I see?  Single-minded focus.  Dude probably knew if he didn't get it done that day, he'd have to wait another week.  In the words of Larry the Cable Guy, "Git 'er done."  Theunis may be a bit nuts, but he got to check "Mow the lawn" off his Friday to-do list while his neighbors were cowering in their basements.

In his little epistle at the back of the New Testament, James writes that "a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways" (Js. 1:8).  There was nothing double-minded about Theunis.  The man was focused on the task at hand.  For a person like me who's a little ADD and too easily distracted, I tip my hat to Theunis.  He inspires me to single-minded focus as I go about my faith in Jesus and carry out my ministry.

Roger Miller, kind of big deal in the '60s liked to sing humorous songs.  He sang one that had this lyric:

You can't roller skate in a buffalo herd …

You can't take a shower in a parakeet cage …

You can't go a-swimming in a baseball pool …

You can't change film with a kid on your back …

But apparently you can mow your lawn with a twister at your back …

if you have single-minded focus.

I think I'll leave the lawn mower in the yard and take cover if I can see a tornado, but there are other things in my life I could do much better if I would approach them with the single-minded focus of Theunis Wessels. 

I Treasure the Church

Rarely a week goes by when I don’t read some article bemoaning the decline of the church.  Some are growing.  Many are declining.  And even in growing churches members attend with less and less frequency, choosing sports or sleeping in or going to the lake over being in the church house to worship God. 

And can I just go on record by saying that I treasure the church—the church in general and the church I serve in particular.  The church has always been part of my life.  My earliest memories include stopping by the church library on my way from Sunday School to the sanctuary to pick up a book that would get me through the worship at the St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Little Rock.  I still the remember the smell of Dottie Hilton’s stale perfume on those Wednesdays after school when she led our little children’s choir at First Presbyterian Church in Branson.  I remember so many things: Bible School, pot-luck suppers, Young Life, college group, camps and retreats.  As a kid I didn’t always find church interesting and I haven’t always loved every minute I’ve been involved, but I always knew I was loved, I knew I belonged there among that particular group of people at that particular time.  It was … family.

I treasure the church.  It was the church that introduced me to the exploits of these larger than life characters named Abraham and Sarah and Moses and Samson and David and Elijah and Peter, Paul, and Mary (not the singing group but the Bible folks).  They told me that they were in my family tree.  It was the church that taught me that I was part of something larger than myself and my town and my country; I was a citizen in the kingdom of God that stretches around the whole wide world and from here to eternity.

I treasure the church.  That’s where I first saw a cross and learned about a Savior who loved me and died for me and rose from the dead for me too.  That’s the one place I could be assured that even if I hadn’t given God much thought on Monday through Saturday, my attention would be brought back to Him on Sunday with words as simple as “Let’s pray … open your Bible … hear the Word of the Lord.”

I treasure the church.  It was the church that gave me my song and taught me to sing it:

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound /

that saved a wretch like me.

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty /

God in three persons, blessed Trinity.

A mighty fortress is our God /

a bulwark never failing.

Fairest Lord Jesus, ruler of all nature /

Son of God and Son of Man.

All the way my Savior leads me /

What have I to ask beside? /

Can I doubt His tender mercy /

Who through life has been my guide?

We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord /

And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love.

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.

At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light.

Up from the grave He arose! /

With a mighty triumph o’er His foes.

When we all get to heaven /

what a day of rejoicing that will be.

How many times have the songs I learned from the church given voice to my praise, words to my sorrow, hope to my fear, faith to my doubts, and carried me when I was weak!  And now the church is teaching me new songs that only add to the repertoire. 

I treasure the church.  The church has helped me see the world—not with the eyes of a tourist but with the eyes of God: eyes of compassion and love, eyes of concern for the lost and the poor and the people at the margins.  And the church has helped me do my part in reaching out to all nations.

I treasure the church.  When I was a child and my family fell apart, the church was there.  When I went off to college, the church was there.  When my kids were born, the church was there.  When there’s been sickness or surgery, the church was there.  When we had a crisis with our son, the church was there.  When my parents died, the church was there.  In good times and bad, in times of rejoicing and times of grief, the church has been there for me.  Ecclesiastes tells us that there is a time for everything and a season for everything under the sun, and the church has been there for me in every time and every season.

I treasure the church.  That’s not to say that the church hasn’t broken my heart along the way, that the church has never let me down, or that the church has always lived up to my expectations.  But that’s okay: I don’t love a perfect church and never have.  I don’t love the church as I wish her to be; I love the church as she is—with her warts and her wrinkles, with her saints and her sinners, with her allies and her critics.  I love the church when she’s gone down swinging and when she’s knocked it out of the park, when she’s soared like an eagle and when she’s limped like a three-legged dog.  Someone once likened the church to Noah’s ark: if it weren’t for the storm without, you could never stand the smell within.  But in spite of the fact that the church stinks it up from time to time, I treasure the church.

I treasure the church because the church has always loved me and because Christ has loved me through His church.  Christ has always loved me enough to challenge me and forgive me and encourage me and stick with me no matter what.  And Christ does just that through His church.  I treasure the church, and I value this treasure.

When I was a kid I collected baseball cards—from the early 60s to the early 70s I collected a lot of cards.  I wish I had known they would become valuable.  Then, maybe I wouldn’t have clothes-pinned Carl Yaztremski to the back tire on my bike so Carl could slap my spokes and make me sound like a motorcycle.  Maybe I wouldn’t have been so free to trade some extra Brooks Robinsons or Mickey Mantles or Bob Gibsons or Ernie Banks or Hank Aarons or Willie Mayses or Sandy Koufaxes for some guy I didn’t know but didn’t have his card.  Maybe I would have held on to rookie cards of people like Johnny Bench and Reggie Jackson and Mike Schmidt.  At one point, somebody gave my brothers and I a bunch of baseball cards from the 40s and 50s—cards of people like Stan Musial and Yogi Berra and Bob Feller and Ted Williams and Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson.  They weren’t in mint condition, some carried a bit of a mildew smell, but they were loaded with some great players.  When we went off to college, my mom started cleaning out closets.  She told us she gave all our cards to a young cousin of ours.  Didn’t think much of it at the time—just a little sting of nostalgia.

But when the mid-80s rolled around and people started opening up shops to sell classic baseball cards to serious collectors—my little brother and I often shook our heads and said, “We could have been rich.”  Here was this treasure in our laps.  We didn’t realize it.  And we certainly didn’t value it.

Christ’s church is a treasure.  Don’t trade it.  Don’t lose it.  Don’t give it away.  Value it.  It shows us Christ.  It shapes our lives.  It provides opportunities to impact eternity.  It stirs us to love and good works.  It encourages us when we need it most.  It gets us ready for heaven.  It makes us rich in ways that money can’t buy, in ways that last forever.  And guess what: you get to be part of it.