Tag Archives: michigan

Staring

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Did your mother ever tell you it’s rude to stare? I’m pretty sure mine did. Granted, it was typically an instruction given relative only to people. Parents experience an entirely different form of concern when their children sit and stare at nothing. Good thing I’m the only parent in the entire building right now. Here I sit, staring out my office window. Although, I am not entranced by a strange-looking person, nor am I being drawn into a void of nothingness. Instead, a reasonably hefty groundhog is wandering around outside my window doing whatever groundhogs do. He appears to be busy scurrying and popping up and scurrying again. At one point, he popped up to look in my window. We saw each other. I said hello and told him he looked well-fed. He dropped back down to scurry away, only to pop up again as if to say, “Same to you, buddy.”

There are plenty of other things I should be doing right now. For one, I should be tidying up my sermon for this morning. It’s written, but it isn’t ready. And yet, I’m watching a groundhog. It’s not as if I haven’t seen one before. Or that groundhogs are all that interesting. It’s something else. It’s more that feeling one gets on occasion. I’m guessing you know the one. You begin looking at something, and after a time, you realize you’re locked on it in a lazy stare. You’re not necessarily interested in whatever you’re observing. You’re just looking. And as you do, you leave yourself for a moment.

Have you ever been doing this when someone suddenly asked you a question? One way to know it’s happening is that it takes several seconds to realize you’ve been asked a question and then a few more seconds to answer. And when you give a somewhat disjointed reply (because you began speaking while climbing back into yourself mentally), the person doesn’t thank you but inquires, “Are you okay?” I suppose it wouldn’t be out of order to respond, “Everything’s fine. I just stepped away from the control panel for a moment.”

Returning to the fact that I’m staring at the local wildlife when I should be working on my sermon, I get the sense that staring at someone can’t be all that bad. The Gospel reading for today is Mark 8:1-9. As Jesus directed the hungry multitude to sit, I imagine His disciples were staring at Him. Aware of the dire situation, they’d already asked Him, “How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?” (v. 4). Rather than initiating a food search, the Lord instructed them to stay right where they were. That was weird. It invited astonishment, the kind that could easily become staring because it didn’t want to miss what might happen next.

My wife, Jennifer, is a gifted photographer. She’ll never admit it, but she has a visual sense about her that few others do. It’s a sense that employs staring—not the lazy kind I admitted to this morning, but the intently honed kind. Jennifer can spot things among casual scenery that most others will miss. Genuine photographers have this skill. Painters and poets do, too. They see things that others miss and then lock onto them. They look without flinching, observing the microscopic details. They learn by staring. They know a glimpse isn’t enough. They know you must look intently to truly see. By looking this way, they know they’ll be led to better, more substantial things.

When it comes to Jesus, this should be everyone’s rule. He’s worth far more than a superficial glance. Everything He says, everything He does, you don’t want to miss. There’s a purpose in all of it, and it’s entirely for His onlookers. That’s one reason any seasoned preacher will admit that even the most uncomplicated Gospel narrative can provide a lifetime of sermons. Every little detail relative to Jesus’ person and work—every single motion and word in every single context or conversation—aims for the miracle of humanity’s salvation. That salvation, and all its accessory minutia, must be examined and preached. To do so is to connect with the instance being studied and be prepared to understand other instances.

For example, observing Jesus here in Mark 8:1-9, I imagine that later on in the upper room on Maundy Thursday, when the Lord took the bread, gave thanks, and then broke and gave it to His disciples (just as He did with the multitudes in the wilderness), there were words and actions used that the disciples had seen before. It was an entirely different context, yet it was reminiscently similar. At a minimum, having paid close attention in the wilderness with the starving crowds, they’d know the Lord’s ability to take a single piece of bread in hand and, prior to giving it to anyone else, make it so much more than before He touched it. In the wilderness, one piece in the palm of His hand became five, and then ten, and then thousands upon thousands, enough that the uneaten leftovers filled seven baskets. Surely, a single morsel in the Lord’s Supper, surely a tiny sip from the Lord’s chalice, could be more than well-wishing symbolism. Certainly, Jesus can take hold of mundane things and extend their potential beyond human faculties for reason or comprehension.

Either way, these things are lost on those who are only willing to give Jesus a superficial glance, one that assumes it can sufficiently sort Him out in a drive-by interaction, ultimately considering Him to be just one spiritual guru among many. You can’t just pop up for an occasional peek, fitting him into your scurrying, and expect to be called a Christian. It’s better to stop and stare. You should watch Him closely. You should listen to Him carefully. You should mind what He’s doing, and as He does it, hang onto His every word (Luke 19:48).

Knowing that Christ is the Word made flesh, the same rule naturally applies to the Holy Scriptures. God’s Word is more than worth an irregular glance. Luther is the one who said, “If you picture the Bible to be a mighty tree and every word a little branch, I have shaken every one of these branches because I wanted to know what it was and what it meant.” In a mere practical sense, for Luther, a tree is a tree—until you examine it. When you stare into its branches with investigative eyes, you’ll see far more than a forgettable object with a trunk and green stuff growing out of it. You’ll discover details. You’ll see one branch leading to another—flowering adornments reaching out from countless stems covered in intricately contoured surfaces. You’ll find things living among the tree’s branches, lively creatures that call the tree home.

By the way, I think most pew-sitters can tell the difference between a pastor preaching from a drive-by glance at Jesus and one who has stopped to stare at Him. It’s not only revealed by the preacher’s care with words, but by the details his words are in place to carry. Telling the listeners about a tree is nothing compared to using words that lift them from the earth to set them into its branches. A tree remains an inconsequential construct until the preacher examines and then introduces you to it. That’s a reality relative to language.

Having said that, I should get back to the sermon-writing effort. In the meantime, consider your own willingness to stop and stare at Jesus. Is He of more interest to you than an occasional visit to church? Driving by, is He more than just another object decorating your intellect’s limited landscape? Is His value for life in this world and the next far more substantial than your rarely-opened Bible would betray? I hope so.

How about this? Pick a narrative from any of the four gospels. Long or short, read the same narrative every day for a week. After each textual visit, take some time to savor it. Think about what you read. Let yourself stare into it for a while. Do this with the same text each day for a week, taking a moment to jot down something you notice with each visit. My guess is that each interaction will provide a unique “something.” You might not understand the something right away. Still, you will have taken it in. And you’ll likely recall it right in the middle of another narrative somewhere else that may lead you toward understanding it. You may even begin to notice particular trajectories, ones that lead you from simple uses for water, food and drink, and so on, to other, more substantial truths—ones suggesting that there may be more to faith’s origin than you knew; or there may be more to baptism than you first thought; or there may be more to the Lord’s Supper than the one-size-fits-all church or the meme-assembled theologies have taught you.

Making Plans

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It feels like the summer is flying right by. Thankfully, I do have things to show for it. I’m certainly not wasting time.

As a parent, I keep on my kids about things relative to time. For example, I occasionally remind them in my own way that someday will eventually become today, and unless you’ve planned accordingly, what today requires will be entirely inaccessible. A person simply cannot live without thinking of the future.

In some discussions with my kids, I try to steer them toward calculating one’s self-sufficiency relative to backup plans. In other words, you cannot always rely on other people. They will let you down. In the same way, you cannot always count on the things you think you can count on. Things wear out and break. Apart from syncing to a cloud-based drive, it’s why I have two external hard drives, each backing up from my computer’s working drive every four hours. It’s why I always bring my laptop to my church office every Sunday morning. If my office computer has problems, I can use my laptop to write and send the eNews and, if necessary, finish my sermon and the service prayers. It’s also why I’ve learned how to use my cell phone as a hotspot. If the internet is down on Sunday morning, I can still get this eNews message sent. It’s also why I have a second printer in my office. If the office printer is down, I can still print anything I might need in a pinch.

I didn’t always live my life this way. But I do now. A few unfortunate circumstances over the years taught me just how right Ben Franklin was when he said that failing to prepare is to prepare to fail. As a result, I do what I can to have a backup plan. Most often, I have two, and sometimes, even three.

I don’t mean to say that the future is controllable. It isn’t. Only the Lord knows what will or will not be, and plenty of people have prepared for the future in every imaginable way, only to suffer future-shattering tragedies beyond their control. For all my planning, I once showed up to the office on a Sunday morning and, attempting to print my sermon manuscript, discovered the office printer was down, the ink in my second printer had dried up, and I had zero replacement cartridges. I had to write it by hand. Twenty-eight years ago last week, my twenty-four-year-old brother Michael was killed in a car accident. Here I sit today, still astounded that he’s not around. His absence was something my family and I never expected.

Simple or grand, even when you prepare, tomorrow is never for sure.

I read a portion from Luther this morning in which he wrote, “Christ has not freed us from human duties but from eternal wrath.” He goes on to say that even as we strive and prepare, the only certainty we’ll ever truly have is situated in Christ. Faith receives that certainty. It can receive it because it understands what laboring in this fallen world as a responsible human being means, even when we know everything we’re doing could be for naught and could all come crashing down. Before it even begins a task, faith admits to human brittleness and life’s uncertainty. From there, it plods along diligently, knowing that you win some and you lose some. Faithfulness, not success, is key. It can live this way because its mortal future isn’t its final future. It is secure in Christ for a future beyond all futures. Destruction is not the last word for believers, not because we worked hard or devised a plan to avoid Sin’s inevitable wage, but because God had a plan for carrying us through it. He enacted that plan in Jesus, the God-man in whom faith is placed.

Relative to this, Christians do work hard. And they plan. Leaning on Luther, he mentions God’s gifts of reason and sense in his explanation of the First Article of the Creed in the Small Catechism. Our reason and our senses make these things possible. But remember, as Christians prepare, they measure their futures by looking through Gospel lenses. Faith doesn’t make plans apart from looking to Christ. Faith does not plan a vacation without planning a way to be present in worship while away. Faith does not invest financially without mindfulness for Christ and His bride, the Church. Faith considers the Gospel’s perpetuation for future generations when voting today. Faith plans, all in faithfulness to Christ and the benefit of the neighbor.

Again, do the plans always succeed as we intend? No. Remember: faithfulness to Christ, not success. Faithfulness to Christ is blessed. Saint Paul assured us that “all the promises of God find their yes in Him” (2 Corinthians 1:20). Of course, that truth is a theme throughout God’s Word (Proverbs 28:20, 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, 2 Thessalonians 3:3-5, and others).

By the way, by blessing, God is not promising health, wealth, and other sorts of earthly things. Again, He promises the future beyond all futures—the eternal reward that’s inedible to moths, out of reach to thieves, and impervious to Death itself (Matthew 6: 19-20, 25-33). When a person has this divine schematic (God’s greater plan for an eternal future) in one’s pocket, what terrors can threaten with any real significance?

There aren’t any. And the ones that try are toothless. Read Romans 8:31-39, and you’ll see.

Indeed, Luther was right to measure all our future concerns and their subsequent plans against God’s promises in Christ, referring to all of it collectively as “true freedom” and then continuing that “no man can value it high enough. For who can express what a great thing it is that a man is certain that God is no longer angry with him and will never be angry again, but for the sake of Christ is now, and ever will be, a gracious and merciful Father?”

Even at Walmart

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I hope you don’t mind, but I have marriage on the brain this morning. Jennifer and I will celebrate our 26th wedding anniversary this week.

I don’t know about you, but the further we travel into marriage’s future, the more content it seems we are to let the occasion be the occasion amid life being life. In other words, we’ll likely go out for dinner to celebrate, but we’ll also just as likely stop at Walmart on the way home for milk, cereal, toilet paper, or anything else a family of six might need. It sounds inconsequential, I know. Some people celebrate by going on trips. Others spend lavish amounts on gifts. That’s not really our way. Last year, we hoped to get away for a few days (since it was our 25th anniversary), but too many other things prevented us from doing so. Several weddings were scheduled, the English District Convention occurred, Vacation Bible School unfolded, and a whole host of other obligations landed on us. We barely managed to sneak away for dinner on a day close to our actual anniversary.

In the end, I think Jen and I have realized that no matter what we might do to celebrate, one exceptional day, while nice, can never really outmatch the everyday blessings we enjoy. Theodor Seuss Geisel—better known as Dr. Suess—was close to describing what I mean when he said, “You know you are in love when you don’t want to fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” I get his point. There’s very little that exceeds love’s discovery. In its moments, life and its possibilities exceed imagination.

One problem with Geisel’s words is that they don’t completely emerge from emotion’s shifting realm. I’d be on board if he defined reality as a willingness to completely spend oneself for the other in both good and bad times. That would better describe the profound mystery of marital love. It’s one reason why the traditional marriage vows include phrases like “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health….” By the way, in my experience, people who choose to write their own marriage vows, typically turn them into syrupy emotional goo, ultimately missing the mark on what the vows are designed to communicate. For the record, don’t even think about writing your own vows if you want me to preside over your wedding. The longstanding traditional ones are more than sufficient, mainly because they do a fine job of communicating a commitment to something other than self. Two phrases, in particular, cement this commitment: “till death us do part” and “according to God’s holy will.” The previous phrases of the vow set reality’s tempo, acknowledging that there will be good times and bad times. These two insist that emotional love—purely human love—is not equipped to navigate real life to its very end. But love aligned with God’s will is. Love aligned with God’s will can stare death in the face.

Jesus told us straightforwardly what God’s will is. He said, “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:38-40). These words are not far from Jesus’ gentle description to Nicodemus of why God would send His Son in the first place: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16-17).

God knew that human love would be forever insufficient. Loving God and neighbor rightly—the Law’s strict demand—would never be met. But God’s love can do it. And so, that same love moved Him to send His Son. Christ fulfills the demand by His perfect life according to the Law and His sacrificial death on the cross. Jesus demonstrates that God’s love is a perfectly committed, selfless love. It insists that no matter what’s required, the self will never mean more than one’s beloved, even if it means completely emptying itself of all divine prerogatives and going down with the ship in death. Christ did this. And why? Because He loves you. This love is epicentral to His will. Taking a spouse “according to God’s holy will” is to pledge that God’s redeeming love—His forgiveness—will be the marriage’s template. When this is true, a marriage can steer through and around obstacles that might otherwise terrify human love.

But still, there’s more.

Regardless of what the culture believes, God established marriage. He owns it. As such, and whether anyone realizes it, His will naturally permeates its design. First and foremost, marriage is to be a divine snapshot of the Gospel. Saint Paul says as much, describing marriage as a mysterious image of Christ, the Groom, and the Church, the bride—an otherworldly relationship established and maintained by impenetrable commitment. It begins with the One who submits Himself to the death of deaths for the bride. Empowered by that Gospel love, it results in the bride submitting herself in all things, not as one cruelly shackled to an overlord, but as one who loves the Groom for all that He is and has done to make her His own (Ephesians 5:1-2, 22-33).

In a natural law sense, God’s inherent will remains. Marriage is the essential building block of every society throughout human history. The union of one man and one woman—inseparably committed and typically producing children—provides worldwide stability. Everything necessary for an ordered perpetuating society can be found within marriage’s boundaries. Saint Paul hints at how important societal order is when he instructs Timothy to pray for and intercede with the authorities put in place to manage it. He insists Christians do these things so that “we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:2-3).

Paul’s point: God wants societal order so that the Gospel will spread.

Marriage not only stabilizes societies, but it is a fundamental conduit in each for communicating the Gospel from one generation to the next. When a society’s marriages begin steering away from God’s holy will—when devotion to self overtakes commitment to spouse and children, when marriage’s biological components become confused, when its sanctity becomes negotiable or irrelevant—the blocks begin to crumble, and the conduits fracture. When that happens, the Gospel—the message of the only kind of love that lasts into and through death—begins slipping into obscurity, eventually securing societal doom.

As I said, Jennifer and I will celebrate 26 years next week. We’ll likely celebrate by doing something special together. Still, even if we don’t—even if life suddenly gets in the way—the marriage won’t be any lesser than before. This is only true because the marriage is “according to God’s holy will.” With His love ordering each of our days, the inevitable road through a reality of good and bad, fading physicality, and unpredictable emotional seasons will continue to prove far better than dreams. It’s the kind of love that finds itself just as refreshed and content holding hands in the breakfast cereal section at Walmart as it does in a classy restaurant.

Sabbath Rest

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First, having just returned to Michigan from Florida, I’ll say it’s good to be home. Well, sort of. Indeed, there’s no place like home. Resting a travel-wearied body in one’s own bed is hard to match. Still, coming home from vacation can be hard.

For one, the very first on-the-clock item I tackled when I got to the office this morning was taking ibuprofen. My body feels different in Michigan. I noticed that when I moved here from Illinois back in 1994. Secondly, time means very little on vacation—excluding, of course, the vacation’s final day. That particular day seems to exist somewhere beyond time’s regular pace. It moves too quickly. And it’s rather tortuous for children. But apart from that, all the other days of vacation move leisurely along, requiring little to no concern of any sort. In other words, unlike a typical day, if my family and I want to go to a movie in the middle of the afternoon, we can. If we want to swim from sunrise to sunset, we can. We’re on vacation. We are not obligated to do anything other than what the moment requires for rest. Anything added to the schedule is the vacationer’s fault.

I did my very best to put my phone away while in Florida. Admittedly, I needed it at times. But for the most part, it stayed in my pocket or on a nearby shelf. After a while, I didn’t even notice it buzzing anymore, which is pretty astonishing. I get pinged all day with this text message and that email and those phone calls. I mentioned to some friends that after a few days, when these ever-prodding communiqués finally reach the delta of my absolute disinterest—that is, when each of the phone’s chirps meets with an audible, “Whatever it is, it can wait”—I know I’m finally unwinding. It truly is a moment of self-awareness.

If you’re paying attention, returning from a vacation can also be a moment for self-awareness. I know for a fact that I change a little while on vacation. I’m not who I was when I left. When I return home to my life’s unchanging things—my home, my office, my routines—I can see what’s different about myself by comparison.

Wondering about this, I just looked it up. A study was performed in 2013 suggesting that among people returning from vacation, more than half experienced measurable personality changes while away on holiday. In other words, they were noticeably different to themselves and others while performing their usual routines. Most often, their behaviors changed for the better, even as they passed through feelings of dread before returning to the grind. That is rather intriguing.

Researchers might read the data and conclude that rest is beneficial. Although, that seems like a “duh” deduction. Reading about rest’s merits, I hear Saint Augustine praying, “Our hearts were made for You, O Lord, and they are restless until they rest in You.” The benefits of rest are not lost on Christians. We already know God insisted on rest’s importance when, so long ago, He commanded, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.” Luther framed the Christian’s understanding of this kindly mandate rather well in his Large Catechism:

“Our word ‘holy day’ or ‘holiday’ is so called from the Hebrew word ‘Sabbath,’ which properly means to rest, that is, to cease from labor; hence our common expression for ‘stopping work’ literally means ‘observing a holy day or holiday.’ In the Old Testament, God set apart the seventh day and appointed it for rest, and He commanded it to be kept holy above all other days. … [W]e keep holy days… first, for the sake of bodily need. Nature teaches and demands that the common people—manservants and maidservants who have attended to their work and trades the whole week long—should retire for a day to rest and be refreshed. Secondly and most especially, we keep holy days so that people may have time and opportunity, which otherwise would not be available, to participate in public worship, that is, that they may assemble to hear and discuss God’s Word and then praise God with song and prayer.”

Luther understood that God wants us to rest. And why? Well, for one, He knows we need it. Moreover, God knows that any form of physical rest, just as Saint Augustine poeticized, will always be a shadow of what can only be found in Him. He is the only One who can give respite from what truly makes us weary: Sin, Death, and Satan. And so, God mandates our presence in holy worship. He doesn’t make it optional. Just as He knows we need it, He also knows that if He doesn’t mandate it, our sinful nature will convince us that we can get by just fine without it. That sounds awfully familiar to me. I often struggle to admit I need a vacation. If I didn’t have caring folks around me saying, “Hey, Pastor, you need to get away,” I’d likely work myself to death. And in moments like this—the first day back, ibuprofen well in hand—I realize just how wonderful it can be to get away mentally and physically.

I’m glad I listened. My life and family have been better for it.

In the meantime, this year’s vacation is done. Physical rest has been had. It was exceptional, as always. Nevertheless, there’s another kind of rest I need far more than I get only once a year. Like my annual vacation, it includes family—my church family in Hartland. As a household of believers, we enjoy a better kind of rest. It’s an unmatchable kind—a divine kind—one in which God Himself attends to us with His brimming love. He beckons us into this rest, a respite only found in the arms of His compassionate care through Word and Sacrament ministry.

What could be more rejuvenating than that? Absolutely nothing. The Gospel given through Word and Sacrament has everything any of us could need for life in this world. And to think, these gifts of God’s grace are available to us every time we gather for holy worship.

I’m sad for those who think they can somehow endure without ever being together with their Christian family in worship to receive these heavenly gifts. It just doesn’t make sense to me. It is counterintuitive to genuine human need and spits in the face of the One who loves to provide for the need in abundance. Even more, it’s just plain foolish to believe that we can be apart from God in this way and still consider ourselves His children. God’s Word certainly warns against believing and practicing such nonsense. But even as it warns, it also promises. It promises that just as we’re inclined to take vacations from God, He’ll never take vacations away from us. Let that sink in. God is always on deck to give you rest. He’ll keep after you with the invitation.

Listen to Him. Understand that God’s Sabbath command is nothing short of the same kindly offer His Son offered when He said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29).

A Family Reunion

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I pray all is well with you this morning. I, for one, am performing my usual early Sunday morning routine, even in Florida. Again, I continue to tell myself I won’t write and send anything on Sunday mornings. But then, I do. I already know the disease’s name. It’s called hypergraphia. It’s a neurological condition marked by an intense desire to write or draw.

I’m just kidding. I don’t have hypergraphia. People suffering from hypergraphia will do something like spend an afternoon writing the lyrics to a favorite song fifty times. I wouldn’t do that. I’d be more inclined to spend a free afternoon writing fifty new songs. I see writing—especially free writing—as a means of creative probing designed to discover what I think about something. The particular prompt is never an issue. I look around at things. I sip my coffee. In a moment or two, I see something, then I’m off and following. In the early morning Florida sun, there are plenty of mental meadows for such wandering. Michigan has its share, too. Every place has an abundance. You need only to pay attention.

In a little while, the rest of the Thoma family will awaken. Soon thereafter, we’ll make our way to Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church in Winter Garden. We visited there last week. The guest pastor, a kindly gent, preached a fine sermon. At one point along the homiletical way, he spoke of being part of a group. Specifically, he described seeing a family gathered in a park for a reunion. He mentioned the picnic tables, the food, the laughter, the sunshine, and all the things that make for a friendly gathering of loved ones. From there, he described a lonely onlooker’s desire to be a part of such things—to have a place of belonging. The point of the illustration was to describe the Church, and he did so in an interesting way.

Admittedly, I drifted a little while the pastor described. Seeing the familial picnic in my mind, I imagined the conversations. In particular, I thought of how families often retell the worst about themselves, ultimately adorning their conversations in laughter rather than tears. They tell the story about so-and-so’s new carpeting and how their son, now a grown man, once ran diaperless through the room, ultimately doing his business and leaving a stain that remains to this day. Or they reminisce about the time Uncle so-and-so pushed Grandma on the park swing, and when she came back on the upswing, he grabbed her wig and ran away, leaving her helplessly embarrassed and angry.

Everyone listens and laughs at the former foolishness. The carpet stain is still there, forever remembering something good now soiled. Grandma is still there, too. She still wears her wig. And yet, she’s not embarrassed, and she’s no longer angry. Why?

Family.

I firmly believe that the only type of human love that will ever come close to demonstrating the love God shows us is the familial kind. When I look at my wife, when I look at my children, I see Jesus there. They know pretty much everything there is to know about me. More importantly, they know my worst, most detestable self. Still, they love me. And I love them—enough to give my life in their place. This love changes me. Self-love is pushed aside, making room for being the best husband and father I can be.

Even if only in a minimal way, all these things give a sense of Christ’s divine view. What’s more, all these things demonstrate just how wonderful things can be in a community desiring to live in the shelter of repentance, forgiveness, and amending the sinful life. It’s in gatherings like that where former sins become memories worthy of little more than a laugh.

Strangely, this sounds a lot like God’s blueprint for the Church. That being said, I hope you’re making plans right now for this morning’s family reunion. We are. We won’t see you, but we will be with you.

I Think It’s Gonna Be a Long, Long Time

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Here in Michigan, with the summer weather comes the bluer skies—the endlessly deeper sapphire skies. They’re beautiful, and they’re more than worth one’s staring. It’s supposed to rain today. That’s okay. We more than need it.

I installed a new stereo in my Jeep. The previous stereo had become somewhat rebellious. For example, it preferred to pause the music when I pressed the mute button. Also, it tended to begin its life anew at every stop. Five minutes at the gas station, and it would reset its clock, lose all the stations, and so much more. Sometimes, it wouldn’t even acknowledge me. I’d press a button, and it wouldn’t do anything. It’s now in a box in my basement.

The new stereo connects to my phone and its music applications, one of which is Spotify. On the way to school one day last week, Evelyn and I listened to whatever Spotify sent us. Elton John’s “Rocket Man” was one of its suggestions. Listening to that song beneath what was gradually becoming a clear blue sky stirred a particular memory for me. I described it to Evelyn. I told her that I heard that song while driving a week or so after my brother Michael died. It was in July 1995. The sky was a seamless blue. I remember leaning a little bit into the steering wheel of my truck to look upward through the windshield for a better view. I did this as Elton sang, “And I think it’s gonna be a long, long time….”

I was 22 years old at the time. My brother—my only brother—was 24 when he died. I remember looking into that infinitely vast sky and thinking it would be a very long time until I’d see him again.

After sharing that memory, I’m pretty sure I noticed Evelyn moving as inconspicuously as she could to wipe away some tears. She’s truly a lovely girl, empathetic in every way. Of course, I didn’t end the story without the Gospel truth, which I’d already shared in a simpler way. Yes, it would be a long time before I saw Michael again. It’s already been almost three decades since we were last together. Still, I will see him. That’s the promise. And I believe it.

My oldest daughter, Madeline, just graduated from high school. Her graduation party was yesterday. What a joy it was to spend time with so many friends. Naturally, as it is with many events in my life—my wedding, the births of my children, my ordination, and so many others—I’ve looked around each event’s scene and wished Michael could’ve been there. That happened at Madeline’s party. Certainly, I’ve always wished my children could’ve known him. And yet, I wasn’t thinking that way yesterday. Instead, more than once while visiting with so many people I cherish, I thought, I wish Michael could’ve been here to meet you. I know he’d have liked you as much as I do.

As the saying goes, each day, a day goes by. But when you love someone, the person’s absence hurts, and each day apart seems to have a thousand hours instead of only twenty-four.

I suppose for many of you, I’m not describing something unfamiliar. You know the sensation. You’ve experienced those moments when you’ve heard a song, taken in a scent, or seen a sight that swept you backward to a time with someone who right now is permanently out of reach.

Having just used the word “permanently,” I realize how strange that word is for Christians. Even with synonyms like “perpetually” and “forever,” for Christians, the truth is that these terms have an expiration date when paired with the out-of-reach nature Death seems to bring. For Christians, Death isn’t permanent. It isn’t forever.

There’s another saying that Death has a thousand doors, and we all find one. There’s truth in that statement. However, no matter its form, because Christ conquered Death, it becomes just another event in a believer’s mortal life—an entryway to a timeless unending with Christ so beautifully described as the shelter of His glorious presence, a place where believers “shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 7:16-17).

And by the way, this wonderful reality will occur among what Saint John called “a great multitude that no one could number” (v. 9). All believers in Christ will fill that multitude’s ranks. Michael is already there, along with all who’ve gone before us in the faith. I’ll be there one day. Someday my wife and children will be there. By faith in Christ, you’ll be there, too.

Until then, in a mortal sense, I think it’s gonna be a long, long time. But that’s okay. Time will end. But eternal life won’t. Knowing this, I can hear a song that prompts a glance toward the heavens and have a different longing as I do it, realizing that for every hour we’re apart from those who’ve died in the faith, there will be a limitless cadence of eternal hours together with them in our Savior’s presence. That same Savior, Jesus Christ, gives this to us because, in perhaps the simplest way, He knows the feeling. Believers are a part of His family. By His relationship to the Heavenly Father, He calls us His brothers and sisters (Mark 3:34-35, Romans 8:29, Philippians 2:8-11, Hebrews 2:11, 2 Corinthians 5:21). He loves us more than anything—enough to shed His blood—and He doesn’t want to be without us.

One last thing.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to make Death out to be no big deal. It is. That’s why, as I’ve said countless times before, I always give Death a capital “D.” Death is not our friend. It isn’t our helper. But also, it isn’t something we must fear because it isn’t our master. The real Master, Jesus, has declawed, defanged, and defeated it. That’s why Paul can recite rhetorically, “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55).

Again, Christ loves us more than anything. Not even Death can keep Christ’s brothers and sisters from Him. Instead, Death must hand them over to the Lord every single time. That’s something worth pondering, no matter the sky’s demeanor.

Faithful not Successful

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Summer is nearly upon us. The weather is finally admitting as much. I give thanks to the Lord for this. Throughout the school year, the pace is much swifter around here, to be sure. Summertime allows more scheduling freedom, and as a result, things slow down a little. Of course, the calendar’s empty slots always fill up. There’s plenty to do. I can tell you that I’m already sufficiently booked into and through the first week of August. Still, as Michigan’s colder weather shrinks back into hiding for a few months, so also goes the guilt I might have for stopping to actually engage in something that has almost nothing to do with pastoring, something I might also enjoy—like figuring out how to lift my Jeep’s suspension an inch or two, or replacing the toilet in our downstairs bathroom, or putting a drop ceiling in our basement guest room.

One thing I do every summer is read. Of course, I read the scriptures. But I also pick away at classics. I’ve already decided on Jack London’s The Call of the Wild. That won’t take me long, so I’ll need something more. I decided to do something a little different. Those who know me best will know I’m keen on sci-fi/horror films. Although, I’ve never spent money on books from that genre. I decided to give the Rage War series by Tim Lebbon a try. It’s a three-volume series about the Yautja (the creatures from the Predator films) invading the earth, only to team up with the humans to fight against another unknown force unleashing xenomorphs (the creatures from the Alien films) across the galaxy. I likely wouldn’t have purchased these volumes if our school’s wonderful PTL hadn’t given me a gift card to Barnes and Noble. I blame them for this eagerly anticipated distraction.

I don’t expect these books to be anything but outlandishly fun, and I doubt I’ll discover anything worth quoting. Perhaps like me, you don’t like to mark up the pages of your books. I’ll usually bend the page’s corner if I find something worth revisiting. Plenty of books I own have these little bends. However, on occasion, I’ll underline something. Flipping through my edition of The Call of the Wild, on page 100, the following is underlined: “It was idle, he knew, to get between a fool and his folly….”

Thorton, a character well-versed in the Yukon’s ways, mulls this thought relative to Hal, an inexperienced and ignorantly vain character who has no idea how to care for, let alone drive, a dog sled team. Regardless of the context London has fashioned, the point is memorable, if not for its simplicity. Human beings are going to do what they want to do. Being the time of year for graduations, I’ve begun noticing this in the ever-increasing irreverence at commencement ceremonies. Ask the crowd to hold their applause, and they’ll clap anyway. Expect solemnity from the onlookers, and you’ll get airhorns and ear-piercing woot-woot screams. Moreover, people have the uncanny ability to be so prideful that they’ll do incredibly foolish things, even things that could ruin or destroy them. Perhaps more tragically, no matter how hard a person—a trusted friend, a sibling, a parent—might try to get between a person and self-destroying things, doing everything possible to coax them away from folly’s edge, unless they realize the nature of their self-centered predicament and accept the better direction, tragedy is all but guaranteed. They will fall. And it won’t be pretty.

I’ve noticed something else in my time as a professional church worker, this being my 29th year. The one trying to help often holds the most guilt, wishing more could have been done to prevent the disaster. A son, even after his mother’s tearful warnings, makes a life-altering mistake, and it’s Mom who cries herself to sleep, wondering where she went wrong. A daughter strays into an abusive relationship, and it’s Dad who grows visibly older with burdensome worry, wondering if he could’ve been a better, more affectionate example.

Erma Bombeck referred to this kind of grief-stricken guilt as the gift that keeps on giving.

Saint Paul said something a little different about it. He wrote, “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death” (2 Corinthians 7:10). The word Paul uses twice for grief is λύπη. Essentially, it means mental turmoil. It’s a pain of the mind marked by agony and regret. As a father, I can assure you that parents are more than prone to this kind of grief. Close friends are, too.

Interestingly, in both instances, Paul takes care to modify the word. The first time, he couples it with “godly.” In the second instance, he attaches “worldly.” By doing this, he’s not saying that grief isn’t real or that it doesn’t hurt, but that there’s a distinct difference between the guilt-ridden heartache we endure by faith and the sorrow-laden regret borne according to human capacity. In short, godly grief has hope. It finds a footing in repentance and is met by God’s loving promises for a regretless future. The other has none of this. The other leads into the sinister depths of eternal sorrow and the end of all human hope, namely, Death.

If you were to visit the verse before verse 10, you’d see Paul commends godly grief, saying he’s glad for the harder moments that stir repentance. He’s not reveling in the pain, but he’s glad for what the pain produces.

There’s something going on here. If anything, a byproduct of godly grief is clarity. Saint Peter hinted at this in a way when he encouraged us to remember something. He wrote: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

When all human effort to help a loved one seems long spent and all hope appears lost, Peter brings us to something else. He reminds us that God’s timing rarely aligns with ours. God’s pace is His own. But no matter His stride, He’s dealing with us patiently. His desire for all human beings is to reach the uplands of repentance. What does this mean relative to what I’ve written so far? Well, let me think about that out loud for a second.

Firstly, I’d say we need to realize that we can’t live others’ lives for them. A mom cannot live her son’s life. Likewise, a dad cannot forever make his daughter’s choices for her. A friend does not control another friend’s will. The sooner we accept this, the better.

Secondly, Mother Teresa was right when she said, “We are not called to be successful, but faithful.” She didn’t come up with that on her own. The Bible taught her to say it (Luke 16:10-12; 2 Corinthians 5:7; Revelation 2:10; Matthew 10:22; and countless more). The point is that by the power of the Holy Spirit, we seek faithfulness to God in any given situation, even when we feel completely powerless to do or say anything of significance. Still, be faithful. Trust Him. Faith knows He’ll take even the most insignificant of one’s words, gestures, or whatever and put them to good use. He’s got you.

Thirdly, things might appear to go south no matter what we do. And when things don’t go as planned, there will be guilt. There will be grief. But let it be godly grief. Again, godly grief still hurts. This is only true because it’s honest. It’s self-examining. It wonders if it could’ve been more attentive, less critical, or whatever. That’s what desiring faithfulness often feels like. It wishes it could be more faithful. But amid its sadness, godly grief remembers something of God. It knows His forgiveness, the kind that covers regret. It also knows the game isn’t necessarily over. It knows that even though nothing we do seems to bring the results we want, we’re not in charge. God is, and He’s moving behind the scenes at His best, most perfect pace according to His steadfast love. Godly grief knows He’s listening to our prayers. It knows the kind of love driving Him aims at rescue—at working to instill repentance and faith.

That’s hope. That’s confidence in God’s love. God’s love dispels the gloom. There is no fear in that love (1 John 4:17-18). It knows that just as we don’t want to lose our loved ones to ungodliness leading to eternal separation in Death, neither does God.

And so, we continue praying while standing ready to act when necessary. This process may last a lifetime. We may never live to see anything change. Still, we know by faith that it could. Who knows for sure if it will? Only God. Either way, we can be at peace. We can continue to be faithful, not necessarily successful.

Be encouraged by this.

The Possibilities

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It has begun. Multiple times a day, the Thoma children announce how many days remain until the last day of school. I bet they’d be ready with the hours, minutes, and seconds if I asked any of them. I’m certainly not annoyed when they do this. I know why they do it. For youth, summer and freedom are synonyms. Besides, I did it, too. As a kid, I counted the days until my only schedule-consuming responsibilities would be jumping ramps on my bike, hunting crawdads in muddy creeks, playing army in the forest behind my best friend’s house, participating in socially recalibrating neighborhood scuffles, watching late-night scary movies, and just about anything else summer could conjure.

Thinking back to those days, even though I stayed up pretty late almost every night, I don’t really remember sleeping in the following day. I remember wanting to get as much from my summer as possible. And so, I’d hop out of bed no later than 8:00 or 9:00 a.m., throw on the cleanest clothes from my floor, have a bowl of cereal, and then fly out the back door to the rusty shed where I kept my bike. I’d throw up a dust trail speeding down our gravel driveway or go off-roading through our bumpy backyard, my bike clanking and rattling all the way. But whichever direction I went, the horizon’s possibilities were limitless.

Some of the summer’s possibilities were great. Others, not so much. I remember one summer hearing that my friend, Todd Smart, fell from the tree in his front yard and died. It was July of 1983. I was ten years old at the time. My dad told me the news. I certainly knew the tree. I’d climbed it, too. If I had to guess, I’d say it was at least twenty feet tall. Although, things seemed so much bigger when you were a kid. As the story goes, Todd had just about reached its peak when the branch he was standing on broke, and he fell to the ground, hitting branch after branch all the way down. A couple of days later, my friend, John, told me he’d heard Todd looked like a pinball bouncing off the bumpers as he fell. Oddly, John and I had that conversation about ten feet from the ground in a tree near my grandmother’s apartment.

It’s strange the things one remembers from childhood. Before telling me the news about Todd, I remember the look on my dad’s face. It was uniquely unordinary. I knew I was going to hear something I didn’t expect. I remember the tree near my grandmother’s apartment. I remember which branches a kid needed to grapple with to climb it. I remember my friend John’s home phone number. I just typed it into Google. A woman with an extraordinary name—Drewcylla—appears to own it now.

Whether winter, spring, summer, or fall, each season holds more across its horizon’s boundary than what’s right in front of us at any given moment. What we experience in those lands will be with us well into the future—well into forthcoming seasons. Some things we’ll remember in detail. Other parts we’ll forget. Some we’ll observe from this side of life and realize how we didn’t fully comprehend the event’s particulars because of our immaturity at the time. Remember, my friend died climbing a tree, and a few days later, another friend and I discussed the tragedy while climbing a tree. I’m well past ten years old, and I only recognized the irony just now as I typed this. Still, the Christopher Thoma tapping on this keyboard this morning is the same one who dangled from that tree near Valleyview Heights Apartments in Danville, Illinois, forty years ago. And yet, I’m not the same person. I’m entirely different after meeting each season’s moments. That’s life. That’s development. That’s growth. And it’s normal.

Seasonally speaking, I’m absolutely certain that growing up in the 1970s and 80s barely compares to childhood today. For one, I don’t remember any of my classmates identifying as cats. (Honestly, the neighborhood scuffles I mentioned before would’ve fixed that weirdness in a hurry.) I don’t remember any of my teachers encouraging me to explore my gender identity or encouraging anyone I knew to consider gender reassignment surgery. The 70s and 80s could get crazy, but not this kind of crazy. I certainly don’t recall any of my teachers attempting one of the worst kinds of crazy: to undermine my Christian faith or divide me from my parents. For example, my son, Harrison, came to me this past week to tell me that his AP US History teacher at Linden High School overheard him talking to a friend about a scene from the Monty Python film “The Life of Brian.” Harrison hasn’t seen the movie, but I have shown him a few of its more hilarious scenes. The conversation unfolded something like this:

“Isn’t your dad a priest or something?”

“He’s a Lutheran pastor,” Harrison answered.

“He actually let you watch that movie?” the teacher pressed.

“No, I haven’t seen it. I’ve only seen a few scenes. They don’t really want me watching it.”

“Of course not,” the instructor replied. “He probably doesn’t want you watching it because it’ll challenge what he’s taught you to believe and teach you another way to look at the Christian religion.”

Nice try. But most certainly a hit and a miss. Jennifer and I haven’t kept the movie from Harrison because we’re his cruel overlords. Thankfully, he knows this. And thankfully, he talks to us openly about things like this. For the record, Mr. History Teacher, his mother and I don’t want him to watch the movie because it employs a few choice words we’d prefer for him to avoid and has full frontal male and female nudity. Other than that, it’s hilarious. And if anything, the “I want to be called Loretta” scene makes you and your dreadfully woke automaton colleagues look imbecilic by comparison.

Right now, even as Harrison is sixteen, he’s developing. It’s our job to help him along. We do this by ensuring he knows we love him more than anything, second only to Christ. When Harrison’s beyond this season of our responsibility, we’ll be happy to let him take the helm. That’s how it works. He’s already proving his ability to make his way without us. He’s already showing that he’s seeing and enjoying the world in ways far different than what the world would prefer. I’ll come back to this in a second.

In the meantime, as sure as I am of the vast differences between the 1970s/80s and today, I’m just as confident that the nature of humanity hasn’t changed all that much. Kids are developing—spiritually, socially, physically, and psychologically. What happens right now—how we talk to them, what we allow to happen to them, whom we allow in their circles, whom we allow to teach or influence them—all these things might seem irrelevant in the moment. And yet, like it or not, every one of the atom-sized occurrences relevant to each situation is affecting them. Twenty years, thirty years, forty years from now, each situation’s truest impact will be remembered and likely demonstrated. As I already said, that’s life. That’s development. That’s growth. And it’s normal.

But know this: The Lord’s normal differs from the world’s normal. And so, with Christ as one’s north star, “normal life” itself is affected. Both the good and bad seasons meet first with the One who promises to go before us, pledging to never leave nor forsake those who are His own (Deuteronomy 31:8). With that, all things meet the child quite differently. In any given moment, recognizable or not, this Gospel will be doing what our faithful God says it’ll do: cultivating joy, resilience, and a necessary endurance that will only strengthen as one matures toward a final breath and then enters eternal life (Proverbs 22:6; Deuteronomy 6:7; Isaiah 54:13; Jeremiah 29:11; Matthew 19:4; 2 Timothy 3:14-17; and the like). As parents, we bear no insignificant role in this exchange. God included us in His baptismal mandate, insisting that we teach our little ones the Christian faith and support them in it (Matthew 28:19-20).

I suppose one reason I’m probably thinking about these things leads back to where I began. We’re coming to the end of the school year. My kids are counting down. As I look around at the children in this congregation’s school, I’ll bet they are, too. Even so, I’m hopeful for their forthcoming summers. I can be. For any of our good or bad seasons (which every community experiences), each child and his or her family has enjoyed the opportunity to meet first with the Gospel of our faithful Savior. Myriads of parents and children in countless schools worldwide don’t enjoy that. In our little corner, on this fractional portion of each of our students’ developing timelines, they do—and in abundance. Forty years from now, when I’m ninety—if I’m still alive—I expect to hear retellings of the memories associated with these things. I’m sure it’ll make me smile then, just as it does right now.

The World is Watching

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What book are you reading right now? Maybe you’re not much of a reader. If so, which TV show currently has your attention? I don’t watch much TV. I read far more than I watch. When it comes to people, I do both. I watch, and I read.

I suppose, hypocritically, I don’t like being watched. Unfortunately for me, it happens a lot. I wear a clerical collar pretty much everywhere I go. Because far too many clergymen have ditched the traditional pastoral garb, trading it for whatever is more acceptable to the secular culture at the time, for many onlookers, a guy dressed in priestly duds is little more than a traveling relic. He’s weird and out of place. Spend five minutes in Walmart with me. You’ll see. Ask Jennifer. Ask my kids. They’ll tell you, too.

I hope she doesn’t mind me sharing it, but I think Jennifer has far too much fun with the staring. For example, we’ll be walking near to one another in a store, not necessarily close enough for people to assume we’re associated. She’ll see someone watching me, and immediately she’ll come over and take my hand. If she’s feeling somewhat rambunctious, she may even give me an affectionate kiss on the cheek as she leads me past the stunned spectator like a prized bull. I don’t use “prize” as though I’m exceptional. I mean “prize” in the sense that she’s exceptional. In other words, experience continually proves that anyone wearing clerical attire must be a Roman Catholic priest. When an onlooker sees Jennifer attending to me tenderly, I’m guessing they think that she must be exceptionally divine among all women, having managed to rope a man sworn to celibacy.

Once again proving the “Roman Catholic priest” theory, I took Evelyn to the dentist on Tuesday. Standing together at the receptionist’s desk before leaving, a high school girl watched us closely. As we departed, I heard her say to the gentleman beside her, whom I assumed was her father, “I didn’t think priests could marry and have kids.” Her dad replied, “The churches are way different now.”

He’s not wrong. Many churches are different now. I offered a subtle hint before as to how this is true. The hint: they’re becoming indistinguishable from the secular world. Regardless of your agreement, this is an important point. As people watch, they are also reading, or perhaps better said, interpreting. This interpretation reminds me of another recent incident. When I told my family about it at dinner, they were astonished.

Two weeks ago, I’d just left the self-checkout area at the Meijer in Hartland and was making my way to the exit doors. About fifty feet from full escape to the parking lot, a woman reached out and grabbed my arm as I walked by. Can you believe it? She actually took hold of my arm to stop me.

“What church are you from?” the bold woman asked, almost gruffly.

Stunned by her aggressive approach, I’m surprised I replied relatively peacefully, “I’m from a Lutheran church just down the street.” After that, she did all the talking. And her reason for stopping me, that is, what did her words directly imply? Assuming the conservative nature of my Christianity by looking at me, she needed me to know there was nothing special about my church compared to hers. In her words, all faiths worship the same God and lead to the same place. Taking a hint from both her demeanor and her “Love is Love” shirt, I interpreted her. The result: I assumed the nature of her church and the minimal likelihood that I’d convince her of its dreadful heresies. With that, I said absolutely nothing. I mean that. I did what one of my former seminary professors would do. He would meet illogically incoherent commentary with an uncomfortable smirking stare.

When the woman finished with her foolishness, the awkward nature of my grinning silence was enough for her to say, “Well, okay, thanks for chatting, and have a great day,” or something to that effect. I can’t recall for sure. The end of her final sentence met the back of my head.

Now, for all the seasoned people-watchers reading this note, had you watched this scenario unfold, you would have accurately interpreted the tenor of my response without me having to explain it. People-watchers are highly attuned to visual cues, making them adept conversationalists and skillful navigators of humanity. In other words, when a person learns to see what someone is likely thinking, the communication game changes. It elevates to another sphere.

Alfred Hitchcock once said something about how the dialogue in his films was just sound among sounds. For him, the real story was told through the characters’ movements, facial expressions, and the like. This is probably why he famously said, “If it’s a good movie, the sound could go off, and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on.”

How might this principle apply to so many churches embracing a seemingly secular trajectory? What is the “perfectly clear idea of what’s going on” the unchurched onlooker will likely have?

Perhaps from another perspective, I wonder if that’s part of what Jesus meant by His words, “You are the light of the world…. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:14, 16). He knew the world was watching. Saint Paul certainly knew the same. For example, in Colossians 4:5-6 he calls for behavioral distinctions before unbelievers. He urges the same in Philippians 1:27, insisting on observable behavior unique to the Gospel.

Don’t think for one second that I believe Jesus and His great apostle, Paul, are saying that words don’t matter. They do. The power for faith leading to salvation is given by way of the Word of the Gospel (Romans 1:16). However, feel free to accuse me of believing that the Word produces communicative behaviors that both carry and display it. These behaviors are distinct from the world. How do I know? The flesh gives birth to flesh while the Spirit gives birth to spirit (John 3:6). This is Christian faith. It produces visual cues, ones that, whether you’re speaking or not, transmit to others who you are in Christ and what you think is true and untrue about Him. If your church believes the LGBTQ, Inc.’s mantra that love is love—which is to say, homosexuality is perfectly acceptable before God, you’ll demonstrate it. That’s how it works.

By the way, silence is a demonstrative behavior, too. No matter the situation, it communicates. My cold silence that day in Meijer told the woman in unmistakable terms what I thought of her goofy theological impositions. On the other hand, how does the world interpret a Christian’s passive silence relative to abortion, gender confusion, and so many more gross atrocities happening in our world?

As a pastor, I know what God thinks of his pastors’ who prefer to keep a safe distance from their voices: “For with you is my contention, O priest…. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me” (Hosea 4:4,6).

The world is watching and learning what we believe. Our worship—the depth of its substance—demonstrates. Christian silence in the face of ungodliness does, too.

The Imitation Game

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I recently listened to a new album from a band I’d been introduced to a few years ago. One particular song told the tragic story of a young girl stuck in a life of prostitution and drugs, leading to her eventual death. Along the way, the singer blamed the absent father, reminding the listener that it wasn’t the girl’s fault he wasn’t around to guide her—to teach her right from wrong, protect her, and love her like the precious gift that she was. The song ended. Another of the same band’s songs started. The new song spoke of carefree sex, and it did so in an encouraging way. The singer—a man and father—referred to himself as enjoying the activity with multiple people from various walks of life and in countless places.

Do you get it? If not, how about this?

I don’t watch much TV. But I happened to plop down in my usual chair while one of my kids watched an episode of “Castle.” It’s a typical cop show with a twist. The main character, Richard Castle, is a famous author who collaborates with a hard-nosed detective, Kate Beckett, to solve murder cases. As the seasons unfold, the handsome Castle and the beautiful Beckett become an item. Eventually, she moves in with him, and of course, the two begin engaging in everything you’d expect from such a situation.

I happened to sit in my chair during an episode in which Castle’s teenage daughter, Molly, had met and started dating a young boy. Of course, the episode portrayed Castle as a bumbling father wrestling with how nosey he should be with the relationship, getting all his advice from Beckett. More than once, Castle spoke aloud about how he didn’t want Molly to do anything she shouldn’t do. In other words, he didn’t want her to have premarital sex.

Again, do you get it? Not yet? Well, how about this one?

I’d gotten home late, and as is my custom, no matter the time, I took to the treadmill. Just as I pressed the start button, my cell phone rang. I usually try to avoid taking calls at such a late hour, especially when the person isn’t a member of my congregation—which this caller wasn’t. Still, I’d failed to return the person’s call earlier in the day, so I owed the caller a moment of my time. The heart of the caller’s concern was essentially this: “How do I get my sexually confused child to understand the importance of living biblically?” My first inquiry was, “Where’s your home church, and how often do you attend?” The person couldn’t claim a home church. When pressed for history, the caller admitted to barely a handful of visits to church over the years.

Do you get it? I sure do. In fact, after experiencing the series of comparative examples I described, I understand what the American poet, Amy Lowell, meant when she wrote, “Youth condemns; maturity condones.” She indicated that we often hold different standards for our children than we do for ourselves—double standards that prove our iniquitous nature. In other words, we don’t want promiscuity for our children even as we might practice it. The point: If you don’t want your child to do something, then don’t do it yourself. When you do it, you condone it.

Don’t use swear words if you want your child to avoid and condemn swearing. If you’re going to be crass, they’ll be crass, too. If you smoke weed, it’s likely they will, too. If you act abusively toward others, they will, too. If you gossip about others, it’s expected they will, too. If going to church means very little to you, it’ll also mean very little to them.

The premise really isn’t that hard to understand. In a way, I made the point in a brief social media post I wrote years ago. In fact, I pinned it to the top of my “Rev. Christopher Thoma” Facebook page. I wrote:

Go to church. And take your children. Yes, yes, I know that, in general, children are not very good at listening or sitting still, and this can make worship very challenging. Still, I say go to church—and take your kids—because, for the record, there is something that children do magnificently. They imitate adults.

The Scriptures certainly weigh in on the discussion. Solomon’s child-rearing advice in Proverbs 22:6 lends substance to it. Hebrews 12:11 points out that while it can be challenging for parents to hold the line for godliness, in the end, doing so produces immeasurable blessings for both the parents and children. In 1 Corinthians 15:33, Saint Paul reminds his readers that bad associations (ὁμιλίαι κακαί) result in corrupt habits (φθείρουσιν ἤθη). The word he uses for “habits” is from the root word “ethos.” A person’s ethos is the storehouse of his core beliefs. It supplies his character, which is demonstrated through action. Paul’s point is that a poisoned ethos will produce poisoned behavior. That’s how it works. And lest you doubt him, Paul begins this admonition by urging, “Do not be deceived.” In other words, don’t fool yourself into thinking it could ever be otherwise.

These things said, it’s unfortunate how adults are so often the “bad associations” Paul is describing—the hypocrites we so often accuse others of being. The Scriptures are pretty clear that how a person lives in front of others influences them (Proverbs 12:26, 13:20, Matthew 5:13-16, and others). It’s no secret that parental behavior shapes children. The way a parent lives in front of little ones will impact them, eventually forming how they live in front of their children—good or bad—and so on.

Do what you can to be mindful of this. And when you fail to demonstrate godliness for your children, the best advice? Confess your failing. Do it openly. What does a child learn from a hypocritically impenitent person? They learn to reject Christ. What do they learn from a penitent one? They learn to live within the better sphere of Christ’s mercy, holding fast to His grace.

But there’s another practical benefit to this, which helps make families even stronger, especially when the parents feel like they have no authority to lead the child because they’re guilty of some of the same harmful behaviors they’re trying to prevent.

For example, parents who lived together before marriage instructing their child to avoid doing the same thing presents an apparent contradiction that naturally negates their authority to steer the child in this circumstance. But if the parents admit that what they did was counter to God’s design—that they’ve repented, been forgiven, and are glad to be living in that grace—their parental authority is restored. The child cannot say, “Well, you did it, so why can’t I?”

“Yes, we did,” will be the parents’ answer. “We’ve confessed to this. God has forgiven us fully. Having been lifted from this self-defeating behavior, it’s our job as parents to help you avoid it altogether. We do this because we love our Lord, and because we love you.”

This is the way of things in a Christian family. We labor to help keep ourselves and each other fixed firmly to Christ. Living this way, neither the family’s victories nor defeats can crush it because every situation becomes an opportunity to demonstrate the Gospel of forgiveness. And it’s this same Gospel that, by the strength of the Holy Spirit, stirs an equally powerful desire to demonstrate faithfulness.