IS SOMETHING WRONG HERE?

A local church was having a rummage sale to help fund a mission trip, and as someone with foot problems I was happy to find some cushy shoe supports.  At the store, they are so expensive. But when I got home, I realize I’d just bought three for the right foot. None for the left.  So yes, in this case, three rights made a wrong!

The word “right” rang up a memory for something I’d recently read in the Bible.  I’d been thinking through Paul’s admonishment to one church regarding freeloading members. Their reasoning: Christ was coming again soon, so why sweat the hard stuff, like work?  Paul came down hard on their laziness, reminding them that even when he was there as a guest preacher, he looked for a “help wanted” sign at a tent-making business to support himself. He’d left them this rule: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). In other words, they needed to do their share of labor.  Then he commended those who were working and helping those in true need:  “And as for you, brothers, never tire of doing right” (v. 13).

Do what is right. That command surfaces in other scriptures: 
“But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. ‘Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened.’” (1 Peter 3:14)
“So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” (James 4:17) “But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” (James 1:22)
“Jesus answered, ‘If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.’” (John 14:23)
“If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. (James 2:8)

C.S. Lewis wrote, “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” Even though it may bring scorn and abuse, “doing right” is the right thing to do. I tried to imagine what happened when Paul’s letter was read in Thessalonica, and his hard words about work-shy Christians (he remarked: “They are not busy, they are busybodies”) caused some consternation. In those days, work was work, and how the necessities of life were to be supplied.  Believers who presumed the Second Coming was imminent needed to get their eyes off the skies and back onto being responsible members of their community.

We’re still in waiting mode for Christ to come again, but the principle still holds:  doing right. When He does come again, my role model is from Jesus’ parable (Matthew 25, Luke 19) about the diligent workers who did their best (even without shoe inserts to make work more comfortable!) while the master was away.  Those who worked and invested got the beautiful commendation:  “Well done, good and faithful servant.” The one who buried his investment got nothing.  

“Never tire of doing right.” I need that reminder on days I’m around people who mock what I believe God has called me to be and do: “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary” (Galatians 6:9).

Last edition

My work as a newspaper reporter taught me the value of the “last edition” deadline. If a news story needed updates or corrections, five minutes after deadline was too late! That work-day experience came to mind on Memorial Day, when my husband and older sister made their annual trip to the cemetery where their parents and many relatives are buried. While they trimmed grass away from headstones and left flowers in the bouquet cylinders, I wandered among older headstones that included epitaphs. Pausing at this one, I wondered who chose the verse. A parent, hoping their lives as a couple pleased God? Or their children, seeing the steadfast fruit of the parents’ lives? I know I’d want “Well done, thou good and faithful servant” spoken over my life.

The verse comes out of Jesus’ parables about servants, one told in Matthew 25 with “talents” and the other in Luke 19 with “minas.” In both cases, two servants invested to the master’s gain, and one did nothing. The angry master called the neglectful servant “wicked” and “lazy,” hardly what you’d want put on your tombstone.

Later, walking under the cemetery’s entrance arch, I thought how those of us on “this side” of the sod still have time to invest our lives in God’s priorities. But only He knows how much time that will be. Eternity could beckon after a short or long illness, or surprise our loved ones with its swiftness. A few months ago, a church friend was getting ready to go to Bible study. In her kitchen, she collapsed and died. My entire family could have perished in 1997 when a drunk driver smashed into our car.  Then last fall, a careless teen driver totaled our car. Crawling out of it, we realized we’d been given another “second chance.”

 

I’ve been reading a book by Gerald Sittser, professor at Whitworth College in Spokane, who lost his daughter, wife and mother in a wreck caused by a drunk driver (who also perished along with his passenger).  Left to raise his surviving three children alone, Sittser wrote: “I chose in the aftermath of the accident to try to live a redemptive life. I had had enough of suffering and wanted no more” (The Will of God as a Way of Life, Zondervan, 2000, p. 95).

 

Whenever we redeem pain for the good of others and the glory of God, we are being “good and faithful servants.”  Sittser added this perspective, that our role in life is like the Jewish expression Tikkun Olam, meaning “fix the world.”  As God’s co-workers in “fixing the world” we “serve the common good, care for the needy, strive for justice, produce useful goods, provide helpful services, and create beautiful works of art” (pp. 207-208).

 

I didn’t know the couple whose headstone recalls Jesus’ parable of the faithful stewards. When their final deadline came—death—there was no more adding to their story. The time to “edit” our lives and make needed spiritual changes is now. The readers of our “story” are all around us.          

A cup of cold water

"You people are too good to me,” our paper carrier tells me as she takes the plastic cup of ice water I’ve left in our paper box. By the time she delivers, late in the afternoon, it is hot, very hot--recently, in the nineties. I never bothered doing that before for a carrier.  But she’s more than 80 years old, and delivering four routes. She lives about a block away in a mobile home community, and assures me that between routes she goes home to get something to drink while restocking her delivery bag. She’s older than me by more than a decade, but I can imagine how thirsty I’d get.  In my fifties, helping my teens substitute a hundred-plus customer delivery route, there wasn’t enough water in a water bottle to keep us cool.  As the weather cools down, I’ll back off from the “water breaks.” But it’s one way that I’ve tried to express caring to our faithful newspaper delivery person. Eighty-plus!

 My “cup of cold water” is probably making you think of Matthew 10:42, where Jesus said, “And if anyone gives a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.”  This statement came in the context of how people would receive the disciples as they shared Jesus’ message about the kingdom of God. Those who welcomed these men would be welcoming Jesus. Even offering these wandering disciples a cup of water (hauled from the local well) was commendable.

Over in Matthew 25, offering some drinking water had a different spiritual consequence. Here Jesus was exhorting believers to look after the needs of the hungry, thirsty (there’s the water), alienated, poorly clothed, sick, and imprisoned. Doing so for them would be doing so for Him.

Maybe it just comes down to this simple premise of the bestselling 19^th century novel, What Would Jesus Do? In everyday life, to Christians and non-Christians, Jesus would show kindness and concern. We are to go and do likewise.

As I discussed this with my husband, he told of a certain teller at the bank we use. She has personal and family challenges, but when he goes in the lobby he tries to affirm her. In cherry season, he took her a bag of cherries he had gleaned. Cold from the refrigerator, the cherries served as that “cup of cold water” to her soul.

In turn, I recalled how God recently prompted me to speak words of kindness in the Wal-Mart parking lot. As I came out of the store, I noticed an older woman struggling to put an older man in the passenger seat.  I suspected they were husband and wife. From my experiences in care-giving my mother-in-law in her last years with Alzheimer’s, I concluded this woman was having similar challenges. As she put his walker in the trunk, I went over and greeted her by saying something like this: “I’m guessing you are his caregiver.  I know it’s tough. I’m been there. But I appreciated seeing how patient you were with him.”  She paused and replied, “Some days it’s really hard. Thank you for saying that.”

Kind words, small gifts, a smile, a helping hand, a positive attitude, even an offer to pray for someone—that’s what fills someone’s empty cup with cool, refreshing water. I’m still learning how to do this, but Jesus is a great teacher.

To bee, or not to bee

See the bee? It's on the right edge of the pink bloom.

My computer faces a window where, in spring, I’m exceedingly blessed by the sight of rhododendron blooms. Recently, I’ve noticed bumblebees working over the blossoms, truly “busy as a bee” as they feed on nectar and gather pollen for their young. I thought about Jesus’ parable in Luke 19 of servants entrusted with ten minas to invest while the master was away.

“Occupy till I come,” the master ordered them (Luke 19:13 KJV). In other words, be busy workers, making good investments. That parable ends with two good workers showing a return on his money, and one sullen worker admitting he did nothing.

The similar parable of the talents (Matthew 25) tells of workers entrusted with various amounts, according to their abilities. Two doubled their master’s money, but one just hid his in a hole. The master was thrilled with the diligence of the first two workers.  But the third, who did nothing, earned only his master’s scorn and banishment to a terrible place. Bible teachers say that we’re that third servant when we fail to honor our heavenly Master with diligence and service with the resources granted us. As 1 Cor. 4:2 adds, “Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.”

I think about that as I go about my “computer” work. I’m grateful for this electronic marvel, which helps me write, bank, locate addresses, and keep in touch with hurting people. I’m amazed at how people around the world connect with this blog, which often relies on information ferreted out of Bible study web sites. But I’m very aware of a computer’s potential for addictive behavior. It easily serves up an artificial world that feeds base desires (as in pornography) or lures people into frittering away God’s precious gift of time.

I don’t want to be the sorry servant who did nothing with the master’s resources. When I stand before God after I die, I want Him to look over my life (including my computer time) and say, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matt. 25:21, 23). And for now, I’ll thank Him for sending a little busy, buzzing bee to remind me “to occupy” until He comes.