What Are You Doing On Sunday?

“Intrinsic rewards don’t impress me.”

 

So said a young girl to her teacher mother when asked why she read the books but failed to take the Accelerated Reader test for credit. The girl simply did not care to be recognized for doing what she enjoyed doing.

 

I’ve given this 13-year-old’s attitude a lot of thought over the years. It fits pretty well with mine. While most young girls dream of a wedding with a thousand guests, a seven-tiered cake and a dress to die for, two people under a tree with no guests at all is more to my liking.

 

So, when my Sunday School attendance has been made the object of attention as it has the past few years, my first instinct has been to head for the hills. I personally believe Sunday School certificates are for grade school kids and not adults.

 

It’s been suggested to me that perhaps the recognition is more to encourage others to do better.

 

Well, I’ve given that some thought as well. Perhaps that is so. It certainly would have been so of me 20-25 years ago. Sleeping in was certainly more of a priority in my life than Sunday School—even though I had young sons.

 

The thought that comes to me, however, isn’t that any intrinsic reward which I might receive for perfect or near perfect attendance would impress anyone—especially me—but that the only reason I am there is because I have no place else to be. My sons are no longer small and need their mommy to cuddle with them when they are sick. I don’t have a nursery age child I need to sit with. My and my husband’s parents are gone and so are the all nighters at their bedsides. We have no close relatives out of state. And I have no job in the church that would pull me out of the classroom on Sunday mornings.

 

Which brings me to my final thought:

 

If you aren’t in Sunday School or Church every or nearly every Sunday morning—where are you? Are you teaching a class? Are you substituting for someone who does? Are you sitting in the nursery with a young child? Are you sitting at the bedside of a dying friend or relative so others can rest? Are you the sole caregiver of a small one or an elderly one? Are you tag-teaming with a spouse or other relative to care for someone? Do you work for an employer who needs you on Sunday mornings? Or are you ill and unable to attend more than a few times a year?

 

If those are true of you, then intrinsic rewards will never reflect the true service you render to the Lord.

 

I would encourage you to reflect upon the position of your presence not only in Sunday School but also in Church, at ABW or AB Men’s meetings, and at Wednesday night Bible Study. Are you honestly reflecting God elsewhere?

 

Or do you need to make some changes?

 

Hebrews 10:24-25 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

 

Blessing Stealing

My pastor is seriously against stealing someone’s blessing. He knows there are people in our church who do things but keep it anonymous the way the Bible teaches and he wouldn’t for one moment share their names or what they do because it will steal the blessing they will receive in the hereafter.

Many years ago at another church, I witnessed a horrible blessing stealing. And I wouldn’t have blamed the victim for doing some drastic “unblessing.”

What happened was this:

The church had taken out a bank loan and the pastor was trying to pay it off early. There was really no reason to pay it off early other than being out of debt and saving the interest on the payments. It wasn’t that big of a debt nor were the payments out of reach of the tiny congregation.

In order to do this, he asked the congregation to give up a candy bar or can of pop on their breaks at work and put that money into a container and the last Sunday of the month, bring that money and put it in a pickle jar to be used to pay down the principle on the loan. It should be noted that probably only about one-fourth of the congregation even had a job and maybe not that, so the whole idea of giving up something on a break that most people didn’t have was kind of a misnomer.

In any case, he made it into a production whereby those with money saved marched up to the altar and poured their money into the jar. This left those who didn’t have money sitting on their laurels, so to speak. As time went on, fewer and fewer people even appeared for services on the last Sunday of the month. Then the pastor started an early morning Men’s Prayer Breakfast on that Sunday to “pray for the ‘Bank Sunday’ offering.” My husband claimed that what he really wanted was for the men to pray about how much they were going to put in the pickle jar later that morning. He didn’t go as it was a 50 mile round trip to go down for that then come back for baby son and me.

The prayer breakfast really didn’t work either and in the end, the men quit coming to pray and fewer people than ever came to church on the last Sunday of the month.

Then he started hounding people about paying the loan off.

One Sunday he held up a check and said: This will pay off the rest of the loan so there will be no more Bank Sundays. And I’ve been told not to tell who is doing this but the name on the check is ______.

And then he named the name.

The poor little white haired lady just about collapsed in dispair.

I gasped at the audacity of the man.

She confronted him right after the service and he actually defended himself by saying: I didn’t tell them you paid it; I told them the name on the check.

If it had been me, I’d have grabbed the check back. Or stopped payment on it and never darkened those church doors again.

Eventually I did stop darkening those church doors. I simply had enough of his heavy-handed domination of the congregation.

I’m sure I’ve seen other blessings being stolen but this is the most blatant case I have witnessed.

Don’t let your blessings be stolen.

More importantly, never steal someone’s blessing. Especially in a case like this.

 

Doing A Number On People

John 9: 1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

It’s been a while since I started a post with a scripture but this one needs a disclaimer–the scripture is the disclaimer.

I posted last week about our school district having lost a young girl who had muscular dystrophy. Well, if I didn’t mention it, she had muscular dystrophy.

Anyway, the last time I had a chnace to talk to her it was one on one and we talked about misguided Christianity. I’m not sure now how it came up by it did. I told her about a blog I had been reading by a young woman who was raised in that sort of legalistic, misguided home where father was law, children were spanked for the least infractions, no birth control was every used, and misbehavior was attributed to evilness within the child. I don’t think we went into all of that, really, but we discussed how Christians get sucked into it by watching the Duggers on television and thinking their lives look so ideal that they can just recreate this in their own homes–if they are just submissive enough to God.

In the end, I said that many if not all of the people who believe these lies would do quite a number on her family of ten children and my family of five children due to the disabilities she had and that my son Baby have. There are those who would rake her parents over the coals for their failure to be submissive to God because their third child had MD. Or maybe it was her fault she had MD. She was rebellious. Or maybe it was another child in the house.

In any case, many if not most of these people would spend ample amounts of time insisting that if the family just got their hearts right and actually submitted to God properly and stopped rebelling (I suppose getting the slacks off the girls and homeschooling instead of entrusting them to Christian and {gasp} public schooling would be a start in the right direction.) then that young girl and probably my son as well would be cured and suddenly [!A MIRACLE!] they would be “normal.”

Yeah, right.

That’s where the disclaimer comes in.

This young girl’s death actually did glorify God. It glorified God in the funeral service her parents gave her which included HUNDREDS of people who heard the Word Of God and songs of praise and words of praise right from her own written journals.

It also glorified God in that other teens were seeing conflicts resolved and relationships mended on Facebook and in real life.

Which brings me back to the misguided legalists who would have done a number on her family and mine–were they to know about us.

The blog I have been reading took a couple week hiatus and then a new post was put up yesterday. The young woman’s family is actually plagued by the women having issues with urinary tract infections requiring them to seek medical attention for those infections and being subject to frequent infections.

In the grand scheme of things, this is just part of life.

In the home of one of my friend’s friends, this would be a matter of “rebellion” and God punishment for sin. This would be a matter for prayer, not medical attention.

The reason for the hiatus, however, was much deeper even that that. One of the girls in the family, now aged fifteen, was born with a kidney ailment that caused the kidneys to overgrow and be filled with cysts. Eventually she would need a kidney transplant. And when she was plagued with a urinary tract infection, she needed immediate medical care.

Well, she contracted one of those infections and it reached a kidney and inspite of the all that medical science could do including heavy antibiotics and removal of the infected kidney, the girl died.

All I can think is how this family must be thinking of itself and how others in the ultra-conservative, legalistic, paternalistic, quiverfull movement must be thinking of them. Are they believing within themselves that they are plaqued by Satan? Are they blaming this daughter who writes this blog for her death–either by being rebellious and leaving the movement or by appearing on their doorstep as her sister was dying?

Are they being told that they aren’t submissive enough? Are they being told that there is hidden sin in their home? Are they being told that God is angry at them?

Are they missing the blessing of God’s Glory being revealed in her illness and death?

Our little girl here chose to leave her Christian school and attend public school. It was a choice she made which was blessed by her parents. She wrote in her journal that she felt this was what she was led to do. She knew it would be hard. She knew she would want to fit in but she wanted to be different–not different because she rode a scooter–but different.

And she was different. And she did fit in. She was exactly herself. She was graceful and gracious and loving and kind. Everyone liked her. Everyone loved her. Everyone knew that she lived for God.

And, I suppose we knew her days were numbered, but we were blessed to have her in our midst.

When Erma Bombeck died, her husband wrote a piece about a ride on a roller coaster he took with a girl with a big smile and a gap between her teeth. There were ups and downs and thrills and chills and scares and level places. At the end of the ride, he looked at the attendant and said it had been fun and they’d like to go again. The attendant said he was sorry but they could only ride once. That’s when he looked and saw the girl with big smile and the gap between her teeth was gone.

I like that analogy.

None of us wanted to let our girl go. We didn’t want the dance to end as her brother said just before singing Dancing With Cinderella for their parents.

But God gives us a certain amount of time and a certain ministry to do. And frequently, too frequently, the ministry is over before we think it should be.

Last summer our town lost a young minister who had just completed his Ph.D. He died of a sudden heart attack after sharing at Bible Study that his heart was breaking for the town. It was noted that it wasn’t just breaking spiritually but also literally.

I said at the time that while it feels too soon to us, he had completed the ministry God had for him.

The same must be said for the young girl we just lost. She had a job to do, a ministry to accomplish and now it’s time to go home.

My heart breaks for those who look upon this as a sin to be sought out and “cured.” None of the people in this post died of rebellion. At least two of them died loving God with all their hearts–and then some.

Beware the yeast of the Pharisees and Saducees. Matthew 16:6

Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Matthew 16:12

Words of wisdom for us as well as for those who lived 2,000 years ago.

Let our lives glorify God and not please the sin seekers who seek to destroy the lives of those they come into contact with.

 

Beholden

This may be a term that some people are not familiar with. It means that you owe someone something because of something they did for you.

Now, I come from a long line of people who don’t believe in being beholden to anyone. My dad refused to be beholden to others. He was paying his own way even if it killed him–and for a while there some of us thought it might.

I recently had the opportunity to talk to a friend about her grandmother. She had a completely different idea of beholden. Oh, she agreed that wasn’t going to be beholden to others–but she kept track of how deeply beholden to her everyone was.

I guess I knew this growing up. I remember her saying that this person or that “owed” her a letter. I remember my grandmother talking about “owing” people letters but my friend’s grandmother would actually say that she had news for someone but “they owe me a letter, so it’ll have to wait till I hear from her.”

When I reached adulthood, I found out from this woman’s daughter that it went much deeper than letters. The woman used to brag that she “never knew how many people were going to be at my house for dinner.”

Yes, the daughter, agreed that her mother served a lot of their friends for dinner–but NONE of them could come back until their parents fed her children in return. At least the one who invited them.

My friend said, “Grandma didn’t do anything unless she was getting something back–that’s just who she was.”

That’s a sad statement if you think about it–charity begins at home and all that.

But it’s even sadder when you consider that Jesus said not to invite those who were able to invite you back. He said even the tax collectors did that. He said there was no reward in it. He said we were to go out and invite those who could never invite anyone back. Feed those who would never be able to feed you. Clothe those who would never be able to spare so much as a sock.

And what makes it sadder still is that this woman read her Bible and is in heaven today. She thought she was doing it all right.

I can only imagine her sadness at realizing too late that she robbed herself of blessings. She didn’t rob herself of salvation–I don’t mean that. But in insisting that people she did for, do for her in return, she stole her own heavenly rewards.

Luke 14:12 Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

 

Self-Justification

I just love (not) the way pedophiles justify themselves.

Now, I’m not talking about someone caught with a teenager–I’m talking about someone who is caught with a child between the ages of five and ten or twelve–pre-puberty. I can understand how the teen is part of the problem because they have these horrid hormonal rages that they don’t understand but before puberty is a whole different matter.

I was going to my email when a news story on Jerry Sandusky caught my eye:

“I’m Not The Monster Everyone Made Me Out To Be”

Right. Uh-huh. Eight males and a former assistant coach have come forward stating that you sexually molested young boys and you tell the press it didn’t happen and when asked if you are attracted to young boys, you say you are attracted to young people and old people.

That’s suppose to make me feel comfortable letting you hang out in a shower room with a bunch of young boys–or worse yet ONE?

I’m not a stranger to sexual abuse even though no one in my family was ever sexually abused. Several of my friends have had to deal with it in their family members and in themselves and it is a hideous thing. It’s not something that goes away either. It’s something that follows you around for most of your life. It’s not in your body but in your mind.

And all those pedophiles justified what they did. They either didn’t do it or they wouldn’t hurt a child (I’ve heard that out of their mouths–of course they think they are doing them a favor {yeah, they really believe that} or it’s just part of everyday ritual or normal contact or something), or they just deny they were even there at the time.

The thing about pedophiles is that there is something in their brains that’s missing. I’m not sure what it is, but it honestly makes them believe that what they are doing is fine and normal. They don’t see any difference between patting a young person on the back and manipulating their genitals. It’s all the same difference to them.

One of my friends who was abused was watching a video of one of my son’s eighth grade graduation and made the note that not a single one of those girls walking across the stage would be the object of attraction to a pedophile. Pedophiles are attracted to smooth skinned, flat-chested people with no obvious indication that they are male or female. I don’t know why and I don’t want to know why.

What I do know is that Jerry Sandusky is doing exactly what every pedophile I’ve ever heard of does–denying that he did anything wrong. The ones I have personally met do that. The various and sundry priests in the Catholic church scandal did it. Michael Jackson did it and now Jerry Sandusky.

It’s possible for them to be taught that what they are doing is actually destroying young people but first they have to be confronted with their accusers and have to admit that they did touch those accusers in the way they are accused of.

In the meantime, look for them to be accusing a lot of other people of things. Things like excessive jealousy and being overprotective. It’s not unusual for these people to have an excessive amount of friends they are no longer friends with and not know why they aren’t friends any more. It’s also common for those ex-friends to have young children.

Unfortunately, pedophiles are also commonly found working with young people either in churches, schools or scouting programs. That’s one reason why my husband refused to allow our sons to join scouts and why we joined a neighborhood church where everyone knows everyone else.

And in case you’re wondering about false accusations–yes, I’ve heard of those too. The thing is, there’s never one accusation when it’s true. There are several from several people over several years. This is never a one-time thing. And the one that comes to light is rarely if ever the first.

One of my friends had her husband accused and wondered if it could possibly be true–especially since the accuser kept calling and calling. I asked her if anyone else had ever said anything.

No.

Since the accuser had only a vague memory and I could actually couple that memory with a member of her family and not this neighbor, my bet is that she’s making a false accusation.

If I were to speak to Jerry Sandusky personally, I would tell him to get into counseling and find out what appropriate touching is and isn’t and train himself to not be attracted to young and old people. Or at least to stay away from young and old people.

But then, he’s not asking me. He’s just telling everyone he’s not a monster. To which I reply–Yes, You ARE!

 

Jonah 2

⁵ The engulfing waters threatened me,
   the deep surrounded me;
   seaweed was wrapped around my head.
⁶ To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
   the earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you, LORD my God,
   brought my life up from the pit.

I wonder if we are meant to take these words literally. Was Jonah bound in seaweed?

Honestly, I imagine he was. The scriptures say that God provided a large fish–it doesn’t say that it was big enough for him to sit up in the way most of us imagined him as a child. Somehow, as an adult, I now picture Jonah, tossed overboard, sinking to the bottom of the Mediterranean, tangled in seaweed, swallowed by a fish that gets him stuck about halfway for three days. So, there’s Jonah, with fish bones pressing him on all sides, seaweed around his head, unable to move and there’s the fish with this large, stiff, would-be lunch trying to kick his way up or down and not managing a thing.

After three days and three nights, God rewarded them both–the fish beached itself and vomited Jonah out onto dry land. Jonah could move again and the fish was out of his misery and ready to return to the sea–relieved of it’s burden.

No whales, no sitting up, no praying on his knees. My guess would be that Jonah was bound by the fish the way Jesus and Lazarus were bound by grave clothes.

But that’s just my guess.

 

Jonah 1

Some thoughts on Jonah’s sailing companions:

⁵ All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god.

They each had a god and none of them was the One True God.

⁶ The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.”

The captain, at least, recognized that there was at least one God that had not been prayed to.

 ⁹ He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”

 ¹⁰ This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the LORD, because he had already told them so.)

If God can create, He can uncreate. Even those who did not pray to Him realized this. So, why didn’t Jonah?

 ¹³ Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. ¹⁴ Then they cried out to the LORD, “Please, LORD, do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, LORD, have done as you pleased.”

The men reverenced Jonah’s life even when he didn’t. They tried to save him and when they couldn’t, they prayed for forgiveness from his God.

¹⁵ Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. ¹⁶ At this the men greatly feared the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to him.

They recognized a supreme power at work here and paid respect in fear, sacrifice and vows.

We don’t know that these men ever left their pagan gods but they did recognize Jonah’s God as worthy of sacrifice and honor which is more than most people do even when faced with the same sorts of miracles today.

 

Mark 16

3 and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”

I hesitate to say “how typical of a bunch of women” especially since I am one, but…..

People in general have a tendancy to make plans in haste and then wonder “how are we going to do this?”

They had the will, they had the spices, they knew where they were going….they just hadn’t stopped to think how they were actually going to get to the body.

Thank God they didn’t need to!

 

Mark 15

 ^1b So they bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate.

As if binding Him would do any good except He allowed it.

 ¹⁵ Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.

Pilate knew He was innocent, had been told by his wife to have nothing to do with Jesus and yet…political pride and ambition led him to go along with the people.

 ²¹ A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross.

Just minding his own business, walking along when some soldiers grabbed him and thrust this cross upon him.

Can you imagine what he must have thought???? I’d have been scared half out of my wits that I was going to be nailed to the thing.

²³ Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it.

Given myrrh at His birth. Offered myrrh at His death. One He accepted; the other He rejected.

⁴³ Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body.

Prominent, waiting for the Kingdom of God–but not able to stand up in front of the council and proclaim that Jesus was God and not guilty of blasphemy–or was he still unsure until three days later, himself?

In any case, he found it easier to stand before Pilate and demand the body than to stand before his peers and demand justice for the innocent.

 

Mark 14

41 Returning the third time, he said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. 42 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!” 43 Just as he was speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders.

Jesus has been praying and the disciples have been sleeping because their eyes have been heavy.

At my age, I understand the eyes being heavy part. My eyes often won’t stay open when they need to.

But that’s not what caught my eye.

Here, Jesus is waking them with haste. “Enough!” He says. There is no more time to sleep. My betrayer is here.

It’s almost as though that now that He has prayed through the night and reached the peace that this is the only way, He needs to rush to the end. He wakes the disciples with haste like a parent would wake a child who is going to be late for school. He sounds almost anxious to meet his betrayer and those who are coming for Him.

He was literally rushing into battle with the enemy–only the enemy thought he was winning when Jesus knew He had just spent the night in prayer and the battle was already over and won. God won the battle before it even began.

Amazing.