Presby-Musings

Today, we will conclude the sermon series "True Religion: Lessons for the Church from James" that we've worked on for the past month.  James' letter to the Church seeks to answer a vital question for Christians for all times and spaces:  How do we define what it means to be a Christian? Like the audience of James' letter, we struggle to follow Jesus in our current culture. I can't think of a more important question for Christians right now.  Today, we will be focused on understanding prayer.  Have you ever wondered why your prayers may not have been answered?  Are your prayers being heard at all?  Have you ever become frustrated because God is silent when you pray?  Well, James has something to teach us.   But before we get to that, I've learned that Pop Culture has much to teach us about prayer.  Let's look at famous and heartfelt prayers from TV and film to see how.  From Talladega Nights:  Dear 8 pound, 6 ounce newborn infant Jesus, don’t even know

  Jesus spoke about the Kingdom of God more than anything else.  He also talked about money more than heaven and hell, so there's that.  So why do so many Christians tend to focus on the heaven and hell bit and let the whole idea of the Kingdom of God go by the wayside when it comes to their expressions of faith?   For a lot of people who say they follow Jesus, Christianity comes down to a choice.  You choose to follow Jesus and go to heaven when you die, or you don't decide to follow Jesus and spend eternity in hell.   If Jesus was less concerned about what happens to us when we die than what we do when we live, why do so many Christians make the ever after the main point?  I think it's because so many of us are enamored with imagining a place without suffering, challenges, or hardship.  A great deal of Christian theology and doctrine backs this up.  Christians of all types seem to hold on to the hope of a day when they'll finally be free from the trials of this life

The late theologian and author Henri J. Nouwen once wrote:  The whole message of the gospel is this: Become like Jesus .   This blunt and straightforward statement belies the fact that becoming like Jesus is extremely difficult, if not seemingly impossible. This fact has led many of us to give up trying.   Or, at the very least, we do our best to mitigate his teaching, finding loopholes in the commands and exhortations Jesus gives in the Gospel accounts or glossing over them altogether.   Most expressions of the Christian faith tend to rely too heavily on the writings of the Apostle Paul, which can be problematic because Paul's writings are often contradictory, obtuse, and sometimes seem downright antithetical to the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels.  I say this with all the experience of a person who has spent most of their life reading and studying the Bible and who still finds the scriptures compelling, inspiring, and filled with excellent lessons and guidance.   But lately, I

  I've been reading a book about Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in Matthew's Gospel because I have been feeling lately that Christianity in the US has come to largely ignore it, and I want to understand why.  You don't have to look far in our current culture to discover that the message of Good News that Jesus proclaimed in his most famous teaching has been relegated to the sidelines by far too many people who call themselves Christians.  It's been replaced by a triumphalistic, fear-based, bastardized version of something that passes for Christianity but doesn't resemble at all what Jesus taught and lived by example.   Sadly, many politicians and Church leaders have so wholeheartedly embraced this shadow side of the Christian faith as a way of focusing on what they consider "Christian values," most of which Jesus had little or nothing to say about.   It's like a sleight-of-hand trick.  If you keep people afraid these values are being compromised, you c

I don't spend much time on social media, but a couple of times a day, I scroll through my Instagram feed for a bit when taking a mental break. This is mainly because it's a mindless exercise, and I need to shut my brain off for a while. Some of y'all feel me on this, I know.  I have noticed that more than a few social media "influencers" love to post about how they are "manifesting" positive outcomes or "feeling gratitude."  It typically sounds something like this:  "Today, while writing in my gratitude journal, I began manifesting good things for my day.  I am manifesting courage to be my best self.  I am manifesting success and wealth.  I am manifesting whatever I need to get you to follow me on Instagram while I manifest. Also, I'm grateful for all the manifestations, and I'm just feeling gratitude while I manifest"    I paraphrased some of that, but you get the idea.  Before you think, "Wow, Leon, you sound like a gru

One of my favorite novels is Gilead  by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilyn Robinson.   The novel tells the story of a small-town pastor struggling with issues of life and faith.  It is told from his perspective, which gives you a glimpse at the inner life of a man who often wonders how to think about things like love and grace.   There is a line from the book that captivated me, and I'll share it here:   “Love is holy because it is like grace--the worthiness of its object is never really what matters.” First, Marilyn Robinson deserved a Pulitzer because this kind of writing is simply amazing. This one line is full of multi-layered meaning and beautifully written. It also has a poignancy that just hits me right in the feels.  As I write this, I can't help but think about the song "I Don't Believe In Love" from the 80s metal band Queensryche because that's how my brain works.   The chorus goes something like this:  I don't believe in love,  I never have a

I came across a quote recently that got me thinking about the effects of grief on our lives and how we can reframe grief and loss to grow and change.  I'll get to that quote in a moment, but first, I need to say a few things about my own grief and loss to better understand how that quote resonated with me so powerfully.   Several years ago, my mom passed away and left a gaping hole in my family that will never fully close.  She was our family's loving, caring center, and her presence is sorely missed.  It was also the death of a dream of mine in so many ways.  We moved to Austin with the intent of having our whole family, including my parents, under one roof, and we had the joy of that for almost a year.  Her death marked the beginning of the end of that dream, and I've been grieving both for a very long time.  And now, there is more to grieve.   For those of you who don't know, my wife and I decided to end our marriage after thirty-two years and are nearing the end of

Today , we will continue the sermon series True Religion: Lessons for the Church from James , which we have worked on for several weeks .   This series seeks to answer the question: "How do we define what it means to be a  Christian?" This is one of the most important questions that those who claim to follow Jesus should be asking now.  Today, we will explore what it means to seek a different kind of wisdom—what James refers to as "wisdom from above."   Before we get into that, though, let me talk about Know-It-Alls.  Know-it-alls, One-Uppers, and Your "Actually" friend—we all know someone like this. They don't just want to be right; they  must  be right.   The definition of a know-it-all: is a person who acts as though they know everything and who dismisses the opinions, comments, or suggestions of others.    Some people feel compelled to do this; it's like they can't help themselves, which is sometimes true.  And they can be annoying beyond t

This is another timely Devo from the archives that resonated with me, and I  hope it does for you, too.  The other day, while I was reading Steven Charleston's excellent collection of inspiration and wisdom, Ladder to the Light , I was struck by a phrase he used to describe faith: seeing by believing.   I have been thinking about Charleston's words for several days and how they seem to fly in the face of how most of us Christian types live and move in the world.   You see, most of us who claim to be Christian tend to ascribe to the notion that  Seeing is believing when it comes to living out our faith.  We look for evidence, wait for signs and symbols on our own terms, and do whatever it takes to bend Scripture to do our bidding and prove our points.  We do this despite what Jesus taught, and the New Testament writers affirmed over and over—that it is "belief" (or, more accurately, trust) in Jesus and the power of the Resurrection that opens our eyes to see.   The be

This Daily Devo from the Archives is an excellent reminder that, try as we might, we can't run or hide from life's challenges.  One of the many things I'm not very good at is reflecting on what a particular challenge or obstacle in my life is trying to teach me at the moment it's happening.  To be fair, I have gotten much better over time at gathering insight and learning after a challenge. There are also rare moments when I'm able to be non-anxious and open to learning in the face of difficulty.   But, like many of us, I just want it to go away when dealing with something trying and troublesome.  Or I take it upon myself to solve the problem by going away on my own----which looks like checking out, leaving, running, or hiding.   I was reading from Pema Chodron's excellent book entitled When Things Fall Apart, and I came across this bit of wisdom:  Maybe the only enemy is that we don't like the way reality is now and therefore wish it would go away fast.  Bu

This is a Daily Devo from the archives, and it was relevant to where we are right now as a society. It's still relevant. I hope it speaks to you as it did to me:  The other day, I was scrolling absently through one of my social media platforms. I saw a post from a friend who declared something in the post that was unbelievably offensive and "othering" to entire groups of people.   I was shocked and saddened, and then my shock and sadness turned to confusion.  I was confused because the person I thought I knew would have never said something as offensive as I had seen.   The more I thought about it, the more I realized how incongruent her offensive statement was with everything she claimed to believe.   You see, I have always experienced my friend as a kind, grace-filled, and loving person who acts generously and openly toward everyone she meets. In fact, everyone who meets her is drawn to her.   So why?  Why would she be so overtly provocative, mean-spirited, and small? 

  There is a feeling that washes over me from time to time as I go through my days.  It's not exactly nostalgia because it's not prompted by a memory.  And it's not even based on reality, at least not a reality I am aware of.  The feeling that washes over me comes from a longing for what might have been.   We all have this feeling from time to time. We think about decisions that have affected the trajectory of our lives, ponder relationships that have come and gone, and consider the people we've lost to death or otherwise and how their presence might affect our present.   Sometimes, we get the luxury of seeing how our lives were made better by choosing one direction over another.  But those moments are rare.  Most of the time, our "what might have been" reveries are pure speculation.   What I've discovered is that more often than not, when I'm feeling these kinds of feelings, it has to do with how the life plans I made got blown up, shattered, or other

  When I get ready for bed at night, I have a routine that includes setting my alarm with my Amazon Alexa device and having her play "thunderstorm sounds," which helps me sleep faster.  I love a good thunderstorm if I'm sheltered in my bedroom under the covers or on my back porch watching it rain. But if I'm caught outside when a storm arrives or driving down a two-lane country road, not so much.   I attended a conference in a more rural part of Pennsylvania a few years ago. While driving back to my hotel, I received a notice on my phone asking me to take shelter because of tornados in the area.  Instantly, I had images of the movie Twister in my head with me strapped by my belt to a pipe while my rental car was carried away by the swirling wind.  Also, Dorothy's house from The Wizard of Oz appeared in my head for some reason.   Thankfully, I returned to the hotel without incident, but I needed to stop at the hotel bar after I got there to calm my nerves.   There

Today, we will continue the sermon series "True Religion: Lessons for the Church from James."  The book of James contains a lot of wisdom for the Church on how to be the Church and also digs down into how those of us who are part of the Church can live our lives in ways that embody the Kingdom of God.   Simply put, James offers guidelines on how to answer this question:  How Do We Define What It Means To Be A Christian? This series on the Book of James will serve as a guide to the essentials of being a Jesus follower in our current culture.   Today: Learning To Control Our Speech  As we will discover, and it's probably not a surprise, nothing can tear apart our witness as Christians like the things we say.   But first, some quotes make you want to say, “Huh?” ‘If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.’ – Yogi Berra ‘When you come to a fork in the road, take it.’ – Yogi Berra ‘Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical.’ –

  "No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world." - Robin Williams This coming Sunday, I will preach about the power of our words and how they can bring life and destroy life if they are wielded without conscience.  I'm pretty excited about preaching this sermon, but I'm also mindful of the impact that my own words might have. This is a constant consideration I make as a preacher every time I deliver a sermon.   Words matter.  The way we speak to one another and about one another matters.   This is never more true than in the middle of a national election cycle (which we always seem to be in, but that's another issue).   We are in the midst of an existential crisis as a country, brought on by the devaluation of public discourse. People no longer value the weight of words.  In fact, they often ignore what is being said by their politicians of choice, even if it is blatantly awful, a bald-faced lie, extremely bigoted, tinged with hate, or jus

I have often employed a question in conversation and teaching, which is probably one of the best questions I've ever heard.  The question is: "How long will you keep pulling people from the river before you go upstream to find out why they are falling in?" It's an excellent question but an even better parable.    A wise man once journeyed to the river to meditate.  But when he arrived, he saw a group gathered at the riverside.  Upon closer examination, he saw the group frantically wading into the river to rescue a steady stream of floundering, nearly drowning people.   Just as they would pull one person from the river, another would arrive from upstream, shouting for help.   The wise man approached the group and asked what was happening.   "Are you blind?" one of the group snapped at him.  "Can't you see we are rescuing people from drowning in the river?  We've been at this for hours!" The wise man sat silent for a moment watching the group