Protectionists

In the current book I have been reading they used a phrase I have never heard before but I found quiet spot on.  They referred to a group of church people as "protectionists"  I wondered if they made it up.  A Google search later I learned that protectionists is a noun that means "The advocacy  system, or theory of protecting domestic producers by impeding or limiting, as by tariffs or quotas, the importation of foreign goods and services"   It is a term used in economics.

The definition has some church similarities too.  The way the author was using it was to describe those people within a congregation who protect certain church buildings, rooms, or other items.  These are the people who are the protectors of the parlor, the defenders of the doilies, they protect the fine tablecloths from ternary, and they are the guardians of...well..."stuff".

These are the people, and every church has them, who don't want the good tablecloths used because children may spill juice on them (because older people never EVER spill anything!).  They are the ones who want banners to stay on walls forever because they were donated by Mr. and Mrs. Legacy and they would roll over in their graves if they ever came down.  They hold down the status quo and are road blocks for change.

Protectionists believe they are doing what is right for the church.  They are protecting the church from what they deem as harmful and heresy.  What they don't realize is in the midst of their protecting they are turning those items into idols.  At some point tablecloths are more important than welcoming children.  Couches in the parlor are too good to be used for a bride to get ready on.  They are turning things into holy objects that are to be worshiped   They are creating idols.

What is more important to a church, hospitality or clean tablecloths or couches?  What looks more inviting, new carpet or the old 1970's green that has faded in the sunlight over these 40 years?  Nothing should be more important than bringing people to Christ.  No building nor the objects within them is more important then our mission to follow Jesus, make disciples and transform the world.

Protectionists out there...what are you protecting?  Have you created your own golden calf?

My Struggle with Hate

When I started this blog over six years ago I did so as a spiritual discipline during Lent.  It was a time when I could sort through some thoughts, have some fun, and practicing writing.  I had promised that I would be honest and open.  Confession is said to be good for the soul and so let me confess.  The silence on this blog for a while is because I have not been honest and open with what has been happening in my life.  Today I feel like I need to cleanse the soul.

I know to some, as you read this, you will see this as petty.  Some may see it as moronic or may come away reading, “welcome to the real world.”  But, if I am to be open and honest I have to say that hate has gripped my heart for a while.  It has seemed to pass now.  The weight of this realization has help remove this ugly tumor from my heart.  The writing of this post, this confession, this ugly truth, I hope will scrape off any remnant in order for me to move forward.

We have just moved into a new, beautiful parsonage and we are VERY happy.  The happiness is just starting to sink in as my wife and I give ourselves permission to finally breathe.  Our previous place of residence was the result of this darkness. 

I understand the strength hate has as a word but I recognize now that it is exactly what I was dealing with.  I hated my neighbors.  There is a part of me that still does although we have moved 5 miles away from them.  I still have to pass their house as I drop and pick up my son for school over these next 6 weeks.  As I do, I can still feel that bile start to climb my throat.  But I have learned to swallow hard and let it pass.

There were many factors that lead me to this hatred over the last 9 months.  Day 1 of moving into the new parsonage our neighbor took my wife on a guided tour of the property lines.  During this tour flash photography was not allowed but what she learned was a third of what seemed to the casual observer to be our backyard was actually not.  Our neighbor owned it (see picture above) and she made it vitally clear this patch of grass was hers.  It connected her house to her mother’s house (our neighbor on the other side of us).  The parsonage, as I would come to learn, was simply a lawn ornament on THEIR block.

Every day there were part of the family, sisters, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, would walk from their above ground pool to their mother/grandmother’s house.  What looked like our backyard was simply an access road for the four wheelers, trucks, dirt bikes and golf carts to utilize.  This road was less than 30 feet from our back door.  Within a week or two of living there it became clear that we were welcome to use our patch of grass called our back yard but we will be watched and whispered about the whole time.  Never really welcomed, merely put up with, tolerated because someone had to live in that lawn ornament. 

The son is what really drove this nuisance to the point of hatred.  On a nice winter afternoon our neighbor’s son decided to ride his dirt bike around the block.  He would start in his grandmother’s yard, ride through our back/their side yard, through his backyard and then on the road around the rest of the block.  Each lap got faster and faster.  I am pretty sure dirt bikes are not made with mufflers, at least whatever model he was driving wasn’t.  My three year old daughter had just lain down to take her afternoon nap, which she desperately needs or else she makes Regan MacNeil look calm.  The loud noise of every rev of the motorcycle was keeping her up.  My wife went outside and very nicely asked the son if he could do that somewhere else because our daughter is sleeping.  He ignored her.  She walked the 30 feet out to him and attempted to catch him on his lap by.  He eventually acknowledged her but then told her off and informed her it was his property and he could do what he damn well pleased on it.  My wife then walked to a building on the grandmother’s property that her daughter (the son’s mother) used as a place of business.  She asked her if she could get her son to stop.  She very reluctantly, and with all the attitude she could muster against my wife, she did.

This incident somehow gave permission for the son to start to do this on a regular basis.  The dirt pile that was located right on our property lines was soon used by him and his buddies as a place to practice with their four wheelers and dirt bikes.  When we would ask if they could take it somewhere else, we were put in our place quickly that we don’t own this piece of property and they can do what they like. 

We had planned on selling the parsonage due to many factors, the major one being that it was sucking a ton of money out of the church.  But on the afternoon in which we would make the decision to officially put it on the market or not I had it out with our neighbors.  The bike riding was getting too much.  I had asked them to take it somewhere else.  They went away for a minute and then came right by.  In a fit of a rage I screamed, “Why are you being such an asshole!”  I regretted my verbal diarrhea but it got his attention.  I walked over and showed him our property lines and informed him that to access this dirt pile, he and his friends insist on playing on, mean they have to drive over our property (about 7 feet) to get to their ‘access road’.  I didn’t care that they walked back and forth.  But this was too much and he needed to stop, if not I was going to call the sheriff.  A deputy came out promptly and walked to the backyard with me.  She informed our neighbor’s son that he needs to stop because if he would wreck on the church’s property our insurance would be liable.  When our neighbor came over yelling and screaming about why the cops were called, the whole time echoing her son’s thoughts.  “WE OWN THIS LAND and we can do whatever we damn well please.  I can rev or make as much noise as I want as long as I am on my property.”  The deputy informed her of the 24 hour noise ordinance in our town, which the son insisted only started at 11pm. 

The next day there was a for sale sign in the front yard of the parsonage, 6 days later it sold for the full asking price. 

In the process of moving out though, things didn’t settle down with the neighbors.  They still did not respect us, or even acknowledge we lived there.  One day, after another altercation over the four wheelers, our neighbor commanded that my wife, “Get the fuck back in your house!”  I would catch the son talking on his cell phone on our driveway or I would find tire treads in the grass, only 10 feet from the house.  Every time I heard him rev that stupid machine I would have thoughts of him getting hit by a car or hitting tree.  He would ride it without a helmet and there was always a lot of cars, it could easily happen.  These were comforting thoughts.  They warmed my insides and gave me a sense of peace as my blood began to boil.  These were the moments when I realized how hard my heart was getting.

When I stormed back into the house to call the sheriff that afternoon, I could hear God’s nagging voice, calming reminding me to ‘love you neighbor as yourself.’  As I paced late one evening listening to anger in my wife’s voice wondering what to do about a teenage bonfire party, I felt God’s nudge, “love your neighbor.”  I joked with her later as we confessed these feelings of hate to each other, that I understood what Jesus was talking about but I wondered if Jesus really knew who our neighbors were!  This, I confessed, is too hard.  It is too much.  Love your neighbor, love THESE neighbors. 

As the weeks progressed and the meetings happened to sell our parsonage and then to actually move out, my temper got worse and my attitude towards people became hardened.  My humor became dark, like The Cable Guy dark.  Then in a moment of peace over dinner my wife looked at me and she said, “I cannot believe how hateful we have become.”  She was dead on.  Hate had entered my heart and was darkening and hardening it.  This wasn’t me.  People who know me know that I am not one who hates and works hard to love like Jesus commands, but this was too much.

Living surrounded by these people, my neighbors, these children of God, was like a noose being tightened around my neck.  One of our friends said it would be cathartic to toss a paper bag of poop into their pool as we left.  We didn’t but it was tempting.  Yet, as we pulled away and left that lawn ornament behind relief started to fill my heart.  Stress has melted away.  Although the bile still creeps up my throat when I pass by, it is easier to swallow back down.  But I still don’t quite know how to love them.  If they were in need, I would help.  I would use all my influence at church and in the city to help. 

I have asked God to forgive my thoughts, those dark dreams and the moments when I stepped outside my normal self and possibly was an asshole myself.  It has been two weeks since we moved and hate doesn’t have a tight grip around my heart as much.  I can see it peek out here and there which tells me this may have lingering effects.  I cannot simply blame ‘those people’ for causing this.  Time, prayer, patience, and discipline will be the keys to getting my heart back. 

I confess it was scary.  I felt dirty and above all sinful.  I pray that did not seep into my ministry and that I was able to compartmentalize that section of my life.  However, I know I am forgiven and I will have to find a time to forgive myself as well. 

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “I have decided to stick with love.  Hate is too great a burden to bear.”  I understand that now and a burden it is, a heavy, smelly, dark burden.  I’m sticking with love.  Somehow, someway I’m sticking with love.  As Proverbs 10:12 says, “Hate stirs up conflict, but love covers all offenses.”  May it be so.

The Unseen Church Building

There is a place that exists that many church members have never visited.  There is place that is owned by the church that many don't even know where it is.  This place is the most used building out of all of the church's facilities.  It is used almost 16+ hours a day, and on some days all 24 hours.  You may have guessed what building I am talking about by now, but if not, it is your church's parsonage.

Last week we moved into a new parsonage at my current appointment.  We moved after ten short months after moving into the now "old parsonage."  It is a task I have lived through as an associate 10 years ago as well.  As we go through this process again, I am struck by a new realization.  The parsonage is the most used, most occupied, most unseen of all church facilities.

I have lived in a church parsonage/manse since August of 2002.  I have now lived in 6 church houses.  What I have learned is that the church only knows what you tell them about the parsonage.  It is almost at the whim of the pastor to either shed light on issues or let them go.  What this translates to is the horrible option of having to "complain" about the condition of the house you and your family live in to people who don't.  It is a unique and precarious place to dwell.

In a utopian appointment there would be a parsonage committee that met like they should.  This committee would be just nosy enough to stay ahead of all the fixes a house needs but not TOO nosy that they bang on your door at 6am every other Saturday.  There is a fine line but it is one that cannot be ignored.

Usually though (in my experience) it is ignored until something goes wrong or the pastor moves.  In my last appointment we had probably the healthiest parsonage committee which met at the parsonage twice a year.  One of those visits was the mandatory full inspection (this is in the United Methodist Church).  In each one of these meetings we would make a list of the small repairs or hick-ups that were happening in the parsonage and make a plan of action to remedy these issues.  Some chairs of the parsonage committee would be timely in fixing those; others not so much.  BUT, what I found to be key, is that someone else knew what was happening within the walls of the parsonage.

With my 10+ years of living in 6 different parsonages/manses here are some rules I and my wife have come up with that we live by:

1.      Leave the place better than you found it.  This means the yard, the storage closet, the bathrooms, and everywhere else.  If all ministers and their families lived this way, SO many problems would cease to exist during times of transitions.

2.      Get permission to fix something before you do it because it really isn't yours.  I dabble with DYI and I grew up with a father who had a rule, "If I can't fix it after three days of trying, then I'll call someone."  But before I run off to the appliance repair shop to buy the $15 sensor to make the dryer work, I check with my parsonage chair or trustee chair.  I do this not to annoy but to double check this is what they want me to do.  That is the church's dryer, not mine and if they would rather pay a repair person to come out, it is their job to make that decision.  Plus if something goes wrong, you have asked permission.

3.      It is the Church’s house but our home.  We make the place our own by putting up our art work, pictures, and using our furniture everywhere we can.  But we also know it is the church’s house.  We attempt to put good boundaries on what we do but also what we should not do.  This especially true when it comes to our two cats. 

4.      Show the house off.  I hate open houses but I do realize they are necessary.  I realize the idea comes out of an older generation but it does serve a purpose.  It gives the church confidence that you are taking care of your house but also enables the pastoral family to point out any flaws that need attention.  For example, in our last parsonage, no one really believed our neighbors owned most of what looked like our backyard.  Once they came out and saw the property lines they understood.

5.      Be willing to get your hands dirty.  I knew a pastor who told the Chair of Trustees that one of his jobs was to come over and change the air filters of the parsonage.  I don’t think that is in the Discipline.  Yes it is not your house, but be willing do plant flowers, change light bulbs, clean carpet after your pets and kids, and other things.  The church is not a butler/maid service BUT when it comes to big ticket and permanent items, it is there responsibility.

(Warning…a small rant ahead)

I have not found a parishioner who understands what it is like to live in a parsonage, unless they were part of a clergy family at one time.  Trying to explain to a person who owns their own home what it is like to committee approval to paint your kids bedroom is almost impossible.  As people have looked at our conference’s parsonage guidelines many think we have it pretty sweet.  Clergy families get a ‘free’ house to live in and all this furniture is provided.  Laity, please listen, it is a blessing and a curse.  It is really hard to make a house and neighborhood you didn’t choose your home.  It takes skill, care, and patience.  It can take a toll on relationships with children and spouses.  Please don’t assume because the house is ‘free’ it doesn’t cost the clergy family anything!  I have heard of people getting divorces and dealing will illnesses from the conditions pastors and their families have lived in/through.

Now I have found that the majority of my congregations truly care about the living conditions of their pastor and his/her family.  They want us to feel like we are at home.  I appreciate those people because they truly do care.  There are others who could care less. 

The fine line is that the parsonage is there (for those who don’t have a housing allowance) and it is a blessing and a curse.  It is the most used facility of all the church buildings but one almost no one would recognize as a church building.  Its invisibility can lead to decay and rot and at some moments peace and tranquility.  The line those that live there have to walk can be tedious and precarious.  However, out of all 6 I have lived in there is one thing in common.  Like it or not, I have called each my home.

Why Worship Attendance Matters - Weems Video

This is an interesting video from Lovett Weems and the Lewis Center for Church Leadership.  I have been tracking worship attendance in Excel for almost 7 years now.  I have never graphed it though and I'm looking forward to what that graph will tell me about attendance habits of my new appointment.  Of course that means I have to wait at least another 6 months to get some good data.

Worship attendance has a cycle and I agree with Weems that we need to understand that cycle in our current congregation.  If we don't then we miss out on opportunities.  We are thinking from the inside out instead of outside in.  Gone are the days when churches simply opened the doors and people came.  In our current reality there are too many other options out there in the world.  Crunching the worship numbers is not focusing on 'numbers for the sake of numbers' but is learning your community and seeing ways, even small ways, to encourage people to connect to God through worship.

Take the time and watch the video...it is worth your time.

John 10:22-30 - Sermon - Hear My Voice

John 10:22-30

Hear My Voice

GOD, did you mean for the giraffe to look like that or was it an accident?  GOD, instead of letting people die and having to make new ones, why don't you just keep the ones you have now?  GOD, I went to this wedding and they kissed right in church. Is that okay?  GOD, what does it mean you are a Jealous God? I thought you had everything.  GOD, thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy.  These are questions that children have asked God.  They are funny and to look into a child’s mind is always entertaining.  But we all have asked God questions at one time or another during our life. 

In today’s text we receive another story of people asking Jesus something.  There seems to be a tread that we can follow in these questions or better yet in the people who are asking these questions.  You can place the people into three different categories: sincerity, entrapment or mistaken assumptions.  As one looks at the people who sit there and ask Jesus questions, they fit into these three different categories. 

In the third chapter of John we receive a story of a Pharisee Nicodemus who came to Jesus in the night to ask him questions.  Nicodemus asks Jesus how someone can be born again.  He asks this question out of sincerity. He honestly is looking for the answers.  He knew that Jesus was a teacher who came from God and wanted to know more, so Jesus answered him with care and compassion.  Jesus lead him down a gentle path full of love and grace.  The answer given befuddled Nicodemus, there was not a huge light that came on that shows us that he understood what Jesus meant by being born again.  But the point is that Nicodemus’ heart was sincere in the asking.

That is not the case for some of the other Pharisees in the Jesus’ life.  You don’t have to look too far to see that they try to entrap Jesus in order to bring charges against him.  Take Matthew’s recount in chapter 22, this is a text many of you are familiar with.  In this story the Pharisees use one of their disciples to go and ask Jesus if they should pay taxes or not.  Verse 18 it states, But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?" "Caesar's," they replied.  Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."   Jesus doesn’t answer them in the same tone as he does Nicodemus.  Here you can tell that he is a little shorter with his answer, a little more poignant, and you can sense the tension.

Then you have the mistaken assumption questions.  People ask Jesus questions but frame it in the wrong context or make assumptions about Jesus that they shouldn’t, and we all know what kind of trouble you can get into if you assume things.  This is the type of tone that today’s question comes in.  The people asking Jesus a question are not sincere and they are not looking to entrap him, well not quite yet.  Within this question they assume a lot and are mistaken in their assumptions.

First of all who is asking the question?  John tells us that the Jews gathered around him.  Something that we have to remember is that the author of John’s gospel does not mean the whole Jewish race.  Traditionally when you see the phrase “the Jews” in the Gospel of John it is in reference to the Jewish religious leaders, the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  The picture we receive now is one of the religious leaders cornering Jesus while he was in the temple.  The first verse of this section tells us why Jesus is in the temple.  It states that it was the Feast of Dedication, or the Feast of Remembrance.  It was a winter Feast and since it was probably a little chilly Jesus found shelter in the south end of the second temple area called Solomon’s Colonnade or porch. 

What happened was the religious leaders may have gotten caught up in all the celebrating.  The Feast of Remembrance is a time when they would look back at their history and see their forefather’s victories over huge threats.  This might have got the religious leaders blood going and they wanted to have history repeat itself by getting rid of their biggest threat, Jesus.  In order to do so they needed to get some things strait, they needed more information.  They cornered him in the temple and asked him, how long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.

The thing is with Jesus is that he can see into our hearts, he knows our souls; therefore he knew why they were asking him what they did.  One of the commentaries I read restated the question as this, Jesus, do fit into our criteria of what the messiah looks like?  When they asked this they were demanding that Jesus answer them on their terms.  They wanted the Son of God to tell them a yes or no answer if he was the Messiah.  Since Jesus saw into their hearts though he knew the reason why they were asking was not a yes or no answer, it was much more complicated than that.  Jesus always gives the answers that the people really need, which may not be what they were looking for.  The main point we need to know is that the religious leaders were trying to push Jesus into a box.  We do this a lot with God.  We expect God to be the God we want and desire. 

I have stumbled on a blog called Letters from Leavers.  This site is dedicated to the rants of people who are fed up with the church.  They are so tired of God, ministers, and church people in their lives that they want to leave organized religion all together.  As I have read through some of these posts I am convinced that many of these people suffer from the same thing that these religious leaders did, trying to fit God into their own little box they created. 

Listen to one of these letters.  I have had enough.  I am leaving for good this time.  I have always grown up in the church, going to Sunday School, and attending worship.  Recently I went through a tragedy and neither God nor the church was there for me.  I prayed to God but God did not answer.  I reached out for help and all I got was a cold shoulder.  I am fed up with this so called God.  I always thought God was there to protect you.  God is there make sure bad things don’t happen to the people that believe in him.  That was not the case though and so I am out.  God is dead to me.  And then the letter goes on to rant about the church and the people in it.

Is it God’s fault that bad things were happening to this person?  No, we live in a fallen world and Jesus never made the promise that nothing bad would ever happen to us, that is a huge misconception about God. 

This person and so many more on this site all seem to be asking Jesus questions like, are you the God that will do things my way?  Are you the God who will shed riches upon me if I follow you?  Are you the God who will let nothing wrong ever happen to me again?  When Jesus hears these questions his answer is, Am I the Christ YOU are expecting, definitely not.

But why not?  Why cannot God be the God that we design?  The easiest answer is because we are not the designer, we are the designed, we are the created, we are the children who cannot create the Father.  Add on top of that, that we are humans, fallen creatures who have a limited ability to fathom the awesomeness of God. God is the only one who can tell us what God is like and he does in the second half of this text.

In this part we receive wave after wave after wave of grace from our Lord and Savior.  It shows us that although the Pharisees expected one thing out of Jesus, Jesus offers them grace, care, and love for his sheep.  Once again in the tenth chapter of John we get a picture of Jesus as a Shepherd and we are his lambs.  This is a common theme in John’s gospel and throughout the Bible.  That is the picture we receive from God.  Jesus, or God, is a shepherd and we are his sheep.

What do you picture when you think of sheep.  For me I get the picture of the only place that I have seen a ton of sheep, England.  As Alycia and I lived over in England for a year we saw a lot of sheep in a lot of different areas.  The town we lived in was right next to the Moors, a barren and unlivable place for humans, but a great place for sheep to roam free.  As we would drive around these moors we would always have to be on the lookout for sheep in the road. With all the grass that is in the moors, some very intelligent sheep would find the grass nearest to the fast moving machines known as cars to be the tastiest.  Inevitably we would see that one of these fast moving machines would collide with one of this not so intelligent creatures and the loser would always be the sheep.

It got me thinking about this image of sheep and shepherd that we get so much of in the Bible.  I looked at this dead sheep on the road and I would think to myself, I don’t know if I want to be God’s sheep.  I know like a sheep I will be sheared tonight but I hope I don’t smell as bad as they do.  I hope I have a little more intelligence, no much but a little bit more than they do.  I hope that I don’t just follow God because I don’t know any better.  All of a sudden this analogy was not working for in my 21^st century mind.  The truth is it might not work in many of your minds too because of your experience with these animals.

As I looked back on this analogy I came to a realization.  I am doing it again.  I am making it about me.  

I am making it about us, instead of making it about God and learning something about God within this illustration.  What do we learn about God as the shepherd instead of us as sheep.  Verse 27 says, My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.  In the text it states that Jesus is the kind of shepherd that knows each one of his sheep.  He loves his sheep so much that he gets to know them personally.  God is a God that is personal and wants to have that personal relationship with you.  It also states that if we are Jesus’ sheep then we know his voice.  We know when Jesus is calling us.  That tells us that Jesus is talking to us.  This means that our shepherd is active in our lives and cares so much about us, that he wants to talk to us, call out to us.

What is it though that the shepherd offers his sheep?  Eternal life.  Verse 28 states I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.  Jesus is the type of shepherd that offers such an amazing gift to his followers.  He is so loving, so generous that he wants his sheep to be with him forever. He offers us a gift that no one else can give us.  He gives us eternity, a piece of eternity that no one can take away.  We worship one loving God.

Can you see the waves of grace now?  Can you see the loving care, compassion, and joy that Christ offers to his sheep? Even though the idea of being a smelly creature like sheep may be a little outdated, we can understand the care that Jesus offers.  We can understand a little bit better who our shepherd is.  In this text God is telling us who God is and I don’t know about you all but I like what I see.

God is telling his followers that we do not have to worry about eternity.  We can loss the fear of the future.  All we have to do is follow the shepherd.  If we do then we will have eternal life. The thing is though many of us don’t truly believe that in our hearts.  We have been tricked before in life.  We know that people fail to live up their promises. We have been hurt, lied to, and our hearts have been ripped out and stomped on.  What makes us trust God then?

We can trust God because God has never let us down.  God promised to never flood the world again and sends the rainbows to remind us of that, and God has lived up to that promise.  God promised that when the time was right he would makes things right again between us and him.  He would send his Son to die our death in order that we may have eternal life.  Jesus came to defeat death by rising again on the third day.  We are in the Easter season, a time when we joyfully proclaim that God did exactly what God said he would do.  God has always lived up to his promises.  There has never, in this history of the world, been a time when God has messed up or failed to do what was promised.

This must mean that if verse 30 is true.  If Jesus and the Father are one, if they and the Holy Spirit make up the 3 in 1 God that we worship and they have never failed in the past, then we can rest assured that they will never fail in the future.  All of God’s energy, strength and love was put into the sacrifice that was made on the cross. God did not fail and God never fails us.  This means that the promise of an eternal life with God must be true.  This means that the Good Shepherd never leaves our side and is always with us through our life. 

We see this in the 23^rd Psalm, the second most memorized section of the Bible.  Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear, for you are with me.  Your rod and your staff, your shepherd’s crook they comfort me.  God’s grace keeps washing over us.

It is alright to ask God questions, that is how we understand who God is.  Asking God to be our image of God will always create a God who fails in some way.  This means that we need to have God tell us who God is. Once we do so we need to rest assured that God will live up to his promises.  Jesus, in this text promises to give his sheep eternal life.  No matter who tries to take that away from us they cannot because it is God’s grace to give out not ours.  It is our job to accept that grace.  It is our job to hear that voice of hope and love; that voice of salvation and simply say thank you.  Then live a life knowing that Jesus is there with us all along the way. Live knowing that you are wrapped up in the hands of God no matter what happens.  That is the voice that calls to each of us. That is God we worship here today. 

AMEN