Think for a minute. What is your number one priority? That is an unfair question, really. We have our lives. Spouse, kids, grand kids. Those are priorities. We have our work. That brings a whole different set of priorities. Friends are another priority. Life becomes rough without friends. There are things you can only tell a friend, things you can do with a friend. And then there are the priorities of your faith. Church, maybe a personal ministry, prayer time, Bible time. We work those things in as best we can.

I have been doing ministry now going on 47 years. (Seems like I just started and now I am looking at fifty years! Mercy!) I have seen these priorities at work hundreds of times. In fact, right off hand I do not remember anyone who didn’t have a priority. And it can be inspiring! There are some who have a priority that is strictly self-serving. They like to hunt or fish or work on engines or whatever. But mostly, people have as a priority something that benefits others. I know a man. Bob. Bob’s wife was Pat. He had come home on leave from WWII just before shipping out to England. He met this cute little thing and got her to marry him. You know the spiel, “Baby, they’re sending me off to war. I don’t know if I will ever be back. Please give me something to remember you by.” “I know what you want, Bob. If we were married it would be different. And don’t call me baby.” “Then let’s get married, Baby.” “Well, since you put it like that, OK, let’s get married!”  Bob went on to storm the beaches on D-Day with staying alive for Pat on his mind. He was completely devoted to her. Sure, there were kids and later grand kids and then great grands, but it was always Pat. In 2003 I sat with Bob and Pat as Pat passed away. The old gentleman turned to me and said, “What do I do now, Pastor?” I didn’t know how to answer. He had just lost his greatest priority. He was lost and alone in a busy and well populated hospital.

“What do I do now?” A plaintive question. One filled with pain, but a question also reflecting the sense of loss one has when the focus in their life is gone.

We all have priorities. I mentioned faith priorities earlier. I said we work those things in as best we can. That wasn’t a slap in the face. God created family way before He created organized worship. Before family came the quiet and restful conversations with God, conversations which expressed love but also received instruction. So, prayer and seeking instruction (we would say now, reading the Word) are the first priority. But when God created the family unit, it was an expansion on the prayer and seeking. They go together as priorities. Even so, most put family priority above their faith priority.

How does that affect our church lives? At the very best, our church lives should be a growth from our personal lives. We must be Spiritual in ourselves before we can be Spiritual in our church lives. Otherwise, the church, and you, will stagger along like a drunk man in a hurricane. In a perfect world the church reflects our personal lives.

In a perfect world. We don’t live in a perfect world. We live in a world where many equate Spiritualty with being of a certain political party. We live in a world that presents pleasures that are far from Godly. We live in a world that demands a change in priorities from things of God to things of the world.

We live in a world of dying churches.

Our church priority is meeting the bills, having worship in the building we want to worship in, not being too hot nor too cold, seeing our friends, starting on time, ending on time, music we like, preaching we like and…well, that is about it. Those priorities may vary from church to church in their execution, but that pretty much says it all. Because our priorities are mostly focused on what we want right now, churches have no future. The church stumbles along and the people in the church explain it away with, “All churches are going through this right now.” Meanwhile, the church continues to die.  

Read the passage below;

Proverbs 29:13-23

¹³ The poor and the deceitful man meet together: the Lord lightens both their eyes.

¹⁴ The king that faithfully judges the poor, his throne shall be established forever.

¹⁵ The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself brings his mother shame.

¹⁶ When the wicked are multiplied, transgression increases: but the righteous shall see their fall.

¹⁷ Correct your son and he shall give you rest; yes, he shall give delight unto your soul.

¹⁸ Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keeps the law, happy is he.

¹⁹ A servant will not be corrected by words: for though he understands he will not answer.

²⁰ See a man who is hasty in his words? There is more hope of a fool than of him.

²¹ He who lovingly brings up his servant from a child shall have him become his son in the end.

²² An angry man stirs up strife, and a furious man abounds in transgression.

²³ A man's pride shall bring him low: but honor shall uphold the humble in spirit.

          There seems to be very little in common from one verse to the next in this passage, except each individual proverb has something to do with relationships. Much of Proverbs is like this, so folks have a tendency to just take a single verse out of context and let that speak to them. However, this is a writing technique in the Hebrew language. Many translations arrange their passages in paragraph form as they were intended. In Proverbs, this collection of verses seems to be disjointed and unrelated. But, in this case and most others in the book, you are to look to the sentence in the center of the paragraph to bring it together. Here, the central sentence is verse 18; Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keeps the law, happy is he. Now the disjointed quality of the passage begins to make sense. When we lose our vision, our revelation from God, we begin to disrupt relationships. We can see what is going on, we can even identify the problem, but we do not have the vision, or desire, to do anything about it. Call it not having a priority.

          Once the Urbana Yoke Parish made a decision as to what to do with the buildings, it became a priority. We began to work together in unity, and we, through the power and inspiration of the Lord, did something truly special. The priority came from the congregation. It was sustained by the congregation. It has become a source of pride. Not self-pride, but pride in what God can do among His people. Following close behind all those changes came the pandemic and the mandatory closing of the church. The Lord had prepared us with the equipment to deal with that, but we needed a committed core of people to play it out. God gave a vision, a priority, to a small group of people to learn on the fly and to be faithful to His call. It was a church wide priority, but one where only a few were physically needed. Others participated through prayer and support.

          But where are we now? What is our vision or priority, that thing we feel strongly about? Have we accomplished everything and we no longer need a vision? If we think we have accomplished everything there is to accomplished then we have but one reality…

          Urbana Yoke Parish is a dying church.

          There is much to do if we are to be strong and robust in the next decade or two. And there is much to lose.

          We need vision. We need a priority.

          For two Sundays in a row, it has been announced that we are putting together a feasibility committee to look at what is needed to start a Youth group. Exactly TWO people have expressed an interest. The general feeling is, yes, it would be good to have a group, but who would run it? I’ll kick in a few bucks now and then, but who will run it? Boy, I remember when (put in a name here} did the Youth! Yeah! That was pretty good! We need someone to step up!!!

          OK. Will you do it? No time? Too old? Other priorities? Everyone is in that boat. But look around on Sunday morning and think ten years in the future. We are OK now, but where will we be in ten years? It is a scary thought.

          So, a feasibility committee. What will it cost? Where will it meet? How long before it is a functioning entity? A feasibility committee will look into it. We call a real Youth pastor. He/she has to live, they will need materials and, if they have a family, they will need other things. Will the upstairs be OK for the Youth? Most likely, unless there is someone who is handicapped. And since anyone coming in will be starting with nothing, it will take five years to really get rolling. Now, I can almost hear some of you thinking…”If we have no Youth, why do we need a Youth pastor?” It is the difference between driving on a road on a nice, sunny day and trying to drive through heavy woods without even a path to follow, in a storm. Unless the infrastructure is there first, you will not succeed.

          A committee like this costs nothing except a commitment of time and the ability to do away with preconceived ideas. Two people have taken an interest. We had a feasibility committee to look into the church building situation, and that was great. This should be no different.

          Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keeps the law, happy is he. What is your vision for this church?

          If you would like to be involved, check in with Chris Hann. He is the president of the church Board. He will set you up.

          Blessings.  

         

          My birthday was this past Monday. On that day, 27 inches of snow fell in my son’s town, which is also the town I pastored in for a long time. When the weather service says that 27 inches, they mean 27 inches in a sheltered space. Drifts are much higher and the more wind, the higher the drifts. The whole area was shut down for a whole day, which doesn’t sound like much. But in an area where they are very proud of their ability to keep the roads clear, a day is a big deal.

         Still, not the worst snow ever. Late November of 1998, a lake affect storm blew in off of Lake Erie and dumped about three feet. On Saturday I had a funeral and when we got to the cemetery we could not get to the grave site. So they set the casket on a picnic table, we all huddled together and I did the graveside. The deceased’s son said that it was fitting because his Dad had loved a good snowstorm and he had loved picnics. It snowed all night and the next morning was the only time we ever called off church. Because of drifting, many churches had their doors blocked and because the Lake was still warm, the snow was wet and heavy and the roofs of two churches in the area caved in.

         Still, not the worst snow ever. Late January of 1978. Yes, we all remember that little bit of joy. South Bend got 36 inches with drifts well double that. Our area in Ohio got four feet. All along Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, 80 mile per hour winds howled along. With wind chill figured in, it got to 40 degrees below zero. If people really needed to get out of their homes, it was easier to go out an upstairs window. A lot of people died, but it would have been so much worse except for those who had snowmobiles going around and checking on people.

         Still, not the worst snow ever. 1949. From mid December through mid January, 27 different snowstorms swept across the Plains states. I wasn’t born yet, but it was legendary in northeast Ohio. The winds swept in to Indiana and Ohio, bringing mostly just wind. However, in northeast Ohio, those winds blew over the Lake and led to the highest lake affect snow fall ever. Bill Vandervort, an Elder in the church I pastored, told me he was working at the electric company and got stranded there by the snow. Everyone’s power was off but they could not get out to fix the lines. Almost everyone heated with coal, so people could stay warm, but even so, many died. Bill told me that about one o’clock in the morning a man got to the power company, nearly frozen to death. He said his wife was ready to deliver a baby and the pain was so much worse than before. Could they get to their house and get her to a hospital? The power company did have a couple of big surplus WWII trucks with plows on them to keep the lots clear. Bill said that he and another man walked on top of the snow and then dug down when they thought they were there. They found a truck, sort of dug it out and cranked it up. They managed to push through the snow to the house. There they helped deliver the baby. The husband/father told them that they had already picked out a boy’s name and a girl’s name (that was the way you did it back in the day, kids) and since it was a boy his name was going to be what they had decided on. BUT, in honor of the power company men who came in and saved the day, the boys nickname would be Sparky.

         Where is all this going? Whether it is snow or hurricane or earthquake or whatever, we are like dust mites compared to God Almighty. We think we can control things, we even understand what causes it all. We think we can predict, but we cannot. It is all in His hands.

         And yet….His love for us is so amazing that He will stop and listen to a small child’s prayer for her puppy. His love for us is so great that He knows us as individuals. His love for us is so intense that we can cause Him to grieve. Do you ever wish you could pick up the phone and call the President? There is a number and I called it once, but it was just a switchboard. However, I can talk to God whenever and I KNOW He hears and I KNOW it will be answered for the best.

         Whenever the pandemic hit, people were saying it was the worst thing to ever happen. Really? Not even close. One commentator wondered if it was related to climate change. Wow!

         GOD IS IN CONTROL, and He still has all the time in the world for you.        

      

          I am a real, honest to goodness, action hero.

          I am in college in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1976. I am twenty years old and married. My life is school, work and church. I want to spend time with my wife, but that isn’t always possible. We have rent and utilities to pay, groceries to buy, a car to keep up and school bills. Marsha is working at a Revco drugstore in Cleveland, Tennessee and it makes sense for me to get a job in that town, too.

          I am hired at McCoy, Inc, an auto parts store that has been there forever. The big draw for me is that if I work here, I can get the parts I need to keep my piece of junk on the road. And they will schedule me around school and church. And they will pay me $2.50 an hour. As it turns out, I work fifty hours a week. Thirty six hours during the week and fourteen on Saturday. I am young. I am strong. I am exhausted.

          I am also extremely disliked by our biggest customer. Mr. Cordin. About six foot six and close to three hundred and fifty pounds. He owns the John Deere dealership in town and, this being farm country, he is a pretty big deal. He also owns seven dirt track stock cars that he races on Friday and Saturday nights. Well, he doesn’t race them. He hires mechanics for the dealership who can race the cars. To satisfy his needs we have to carry parts for nearly every tractor ever built as well as parts for his cars. His dislike for me is two-fold; I talk like a $%@# Yankee and I go to college. He will come in and make a big deal about having something hard and he needs to talk to the college boy. First he wants a lower radiator hose for a VW Beetle. Next he wants some little obscure valve for a 1939 tractor. Next he comes in and makes up a non-existent tractor that he needs a non-existent part for. He does everything he can do to make it hard for me. The owner tells me that if I ever get lippy with Mr. Cordin, I will be fired. It is hard because I really do not like him at all.

           I am the guy who opens up on Saturday and I am the guy who locks up. Saturdays are always killers because when I get there, there are ten to twenty guys already there to get parts for their race cars that they broke the night before. Everybody is already angry because they have to do this and it makes life difficult. Mr. Cordin is here every Saturday morning. All the other men defer to him. He gets to go first. After all, he owns the John Deere dealership and most of these guys owe him money.

          I am ready for him this Saturday. I have prayed about it. He is grumpier than usual, but I ignore that. He has a two page list and I jump right into it. With race cars you can’t just look up a differential for the 1961 Chevy it is going into. It likely has a Ford differential. Most times, only the shell is identifiable, the rest of the car is all mix and match. However, I actually enjoy that. Makes it interesting. I soon have everything on the counter and I am ready to ring it up when Mr. Cordin reaches into a bag and pulls out a broken motor mount. “College boy, Ah don’t think you’s can find this here mount. Ah’s a coming with you to match it up.” By sight I thought I recognized it, So, I invite him to come along. It will be sweet to walk right to the box and pull it out.

          I am a little nervous, though. The part of the rack that holds the motor mounts faces the old wooden shelves that hold all the batteries. And there are a lot of batteries. We don’t carry just for cars and pick-ups. No sir. We carry for tractor trailers, we carry deep wells for boats, we carry all kinds of batteries for various pieces of farm equipment. The whole wall is shelving for batteries, floor to ceiling. Old wooden shelving bolted to the wall, which is an outside wall. When someone needs a battery that is at the top, we climb a tall ladder to get to the top and then carry a heavy battery down. I have always had a fear of heights anyway, but here I can imagine that top shelf breaking and batteries raining down.

          I am thinking this while I am getting down to get the mount out. What I don’t know is that Mr. McCoy’s (the owner) son’s wife has just whipped into the parking lot. She does our books and she is very angry that she has to work Saturday to do end of the month. She’s driving too fast and when she goes to slam on the brakes she just pushes the accelerator to the floor. She is going into her parking space, which happens to be on the other side of the battery wall. When she hits the gas she accelerates right into the wall.

          I am kneeling on the floor, reaching a mount up to Mr. Cordin to match, when I hear the crash. Instantly, I am on the move, coming up from the kneeling position. Mr. Cordin is right in front of me. Big man. My shoulder buries into his stomach and he doubles over me. By the time we are at the end of the aisle, batteries are smashing down behind us right where we had been. Some are bursting open, spewing acid everywhere. Finally, with Mr. Corbin’s bulk on me, I go down. We hit the floor (no acid there, yet) and slide into the racks holding exhaust pipes. I give Mr. Cordin a hand up and we go down several aisles and then head to the front, where everyone is exiting the building.

          I am bending over and retching. So is everyone else. The vapors from the acid have gotten to everyone. Except Mr. Cordin. I had knocked the air out of him and now he was just trying to get his lungs to work. But when he does get the lungs working, he comes to me and stands me straight up. “Boy, you saved me! You saved my life! You saved me!” I try to tell him that he was just in my way, which is the truth. But he isn’t buying it. After that, he brings me a bag of White Castle hamburgers whenever he comes in.  

          I am an action hero.

          I am also a literary hero. I wrote that whole thing in present tense, which is hard to do. I also started every paragraph with ‘I am.’ Also very hard to do. Just did that for a hoot.

          But accidently saving Mr. Cordin’s life does not make me a hero. Seriously, if I had been facing the other way, Mr. Cordin would have died then and there. As it is, I remember it as a funny story. And it explains why I can’t stand White Castle now. But there was nothing heroic about it.

          I got word this week that Jim Wilson, a friend, has died. He owned a string of gas stations and was quite wealthy. He didn’t accept Christ until he was in his 50s, but he spent the last twenty years making up for time lost. To me, he was a hero. Martha Chamberlain will not be remembered much beyond the boundaries of Urbana. But her gentle spirit and steadfast faith made her stand out. Church seemed better when she was there. To me, she was a hero. After forty six years in the ministry I have been blessed to encounter many such heroes. I hold all of them close in my heart. Some people go their whole lives wanting to meet a sports hero or a music hero or whatever, never realizing that there are heroes close by.

          Which brings the thought. YOU can be a hero to someone. Just let the Lord lead. Be His instrument.

          Blessings.

          It is a strange little story, but one that is very important.

            The woman lived in a society that didn’t allow women to own property, have real jobs or in any way to be independent of men. What was worse, she was apparently not of the people she lived with, a stranger in a strange land. She didn’t look like them, she had no respect and no honor was given her. We do know that based on her offspring and how they looked, she was very different. She had a family; parents and other relatives, but apparently no children of her own at the time of this story, and no husband. It seems that none of her family was of any importance and it also seems that it fell to her to provide a living for that family. To that end, she sold herself. She was a prostitute. Life would have been desperate for this woman.

            History gives her an odd name. The name literally means ‘Big Red.’ Being that this was at a time before the color red was associated with prostitution, most people assume that the name was descriptive in nature. Like a red headed, light skinned man being referred to as ‘Red.’ Some of this woman’s later descendants are said to have had ruddy skin and red hair, so the assumption is that being called Big Red was because of the way she looked. No one who was naturally born in her city or area would have had fair skin or red hair. So, again, it is thought she was a trophy of some far flung war. But, assumptions are just assumptions. There may be a totally different reason she was called Big Red. But the evidence fits that it was descriptive.

            The common thread that has bound one society to another society, and eon to eon, is war. Mankind is always at war. We say we desire peace, but we are always ready to fight. It would be n amazing thing to know how many people have died in one conflict or the other. To say that one day man will outgrow war is to be ignorant of what makes humanity tick. One day, yes, there will be no more war, but only when the Lord returns. And so it was, that the city Big Red lived in was now besieged. There were no airplanes to bring over bombs, no artillery to blast away the walls of that great city, no tanks or Humvees to charge the massive fortifications. Just an unprepared people not used to war camped outside the great city that stood in their way. The people inside the city barely slowed down their evilness and hatred. The group outside would eventually tire of this and go away.

            Big Red did not want her family to die in an all out war, but she had no love for the people of the great city, either. One man after another came to her, yet she was barely able to eke out a life. Rejected by the society matrons, she was accepted by the husbands of those matrons, but only in the most base of ways. She would have known of the gathering outside the walls, but there was nothing she could do.

          Then one day there was an uproar within the city. Shouts and curses filled the air in neighborhood. Big Read’s rooms were built into the city’s walls, which was a place not to be desired. In time of war, a determined enemy would attempt to scale those walls. If you lived in the wall you were much more likely to die. Being in the wall, she would only have had to open her door to see what was happening.

          It might have been, though, that you didn’t want to know. So, we don’t know if she did look out. What we do know is that suddenly two men appeared at her door. This was not unusual. She was a prostitute, after all. But these men were not after sex. They were after safety. They wanted to escape the authorities of the city and get back to their own people, who were the very people who now camped without the city walls. These men were spies and now they needed to get their information back to their leaders.

          Big Red lived a hard life. She knew what people were like. Turn these men in and there would almost certainly be a lessening of that hard life. Maybe a reward, maybe some honor given to her, surely something that would have improved her lot in life. But, she was moved by these men. Against any good judgment, she decided to help them. Not only did this endanger her, but it also endangered her family. Her price for hiding these two men and then helping them escape was a promise that she and her family would be spared. This was a foolhardy deal for her to make. Almost certainly these people would fail and she and her family would die, but Big Red, for some reason, believed.

          The two spies escaped and got back to their own lines with their information. The walls were breached and the city fell and Big Red and her family were not only spared but accepted fully into this new society. One of those ‘happily ever after’ stories.

          But it doesn’t end there.

          By now, most of you have surmised that this is the story of the conquest of Jericho. Big Red is translated in our English Bible as Rahab or Rachab. We would think that, at best, Rahab is merely a minor heroine. But, she was much more than that. She married a Jewish man named Salmon. One of her descendants, just a few generations later, was King David. A thousand years after that, she had a descendant named Jesus. Her courage not only changed the Jews, but also changed the world.

          She might have, if she had lived to a great age, known the baby David. However, there would have been no way for her to have known Jesus. But, her perception of those two men and the bravery she showed by reaching out to them and risking all make her one of the greats in history.

          The point of this is that we should never sell ourselves short. Maybe we will not rattle the world in this life. But the foundations we lay may be used to one day build something totally incredible. That is not so farfetched, either. It all adds up, it is all connected.

          Wow. 2022 is right here, ready to be lived. What are you going to do for the Lord? Is it really true that all you can do is sit in the pew? I am sure Rahab woke the morning the men showed up convinced that life was just miserable and that was it. I am equally sure she struggled, at least for a bit, deciding whether or not to help them.

          And here is another thought; the spies that had been sent in were most likely the cream of the crop, so to speak. Only the most trusted, the most revered would be chosen for the job. Yet the name of the spies are never mentioned. But the name of the harlot is held dear among the Jews even today.

          A child’s prayer. “There is but one life, it will soon be past. Only what is done for Christ, will last.” Begin doing something, even if it seems small, for Christ.  

 

          I want to thank you folks for walking along with me on this wonderful path we have been on since Thanksgiving. As beautiful and meaningful as the songs are the stories behind them are even more telling of the power of a Baby born to be a Sacrifice and then a Savior. I think of the son of slaves, intent on preserving the music of his people. Without the efforts of John Work, Jr and his wife, most of those plantation songs given up in the fields to praise the Lord, would have been lost. I think of a young priest desperate to provide his congregation with some kind of music for Christmas Eve, and in his despair he created the most cherished of all the Christmas songs. I think of a pastor, known throughout this country, a man who sat with a president who was torn from all sides, a pastor who had reached the pinnacle of success in 1865, standing outside an old church in Bethlehem, weeping as the bells tolled on Christmas Eve. I think of three men who didn’t know each other and who, for the love of money, put together one of the most inspiring of the Christmas hymns.

         Several of these hymns were forged in the fire of war and later, on various Christmas Eves, those same songs were sung by both sides as memory, and hope, of better times. Sometimes it was illness, sometimes depression, sometimes desperation, sometimes an overwhelming urge to protect and preserve….whatever it was, there is deep human emotion buried within the words of the songs, an emotion that comes out even now, decades later. The plea of a man who had enough of war, writing “O come, all ye faithful” is understood by all believers. Peace exists only in Christ. We can understand the painful grief of a man who had lost so many that he loved, writing the words, “And in despair I bowed my head; ‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said; ‘For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!” But as Christians we also understand the release of his soul at the point of salvation.

         These songs stir our souls and cause our spirits to soar.

         There is a song I purposely left out. When I asked for favorites, this song was the most popular. I left it out because it isn’t a Christmas song. The first verse is about the Birth, but the whole song paints a complete picture of the Savior. And that is one of the problems with all of these Christmas songs. For some reason, everyone knows the first verse, but then we want to move on. That makes an inspiring hymn into nothing more than just a carol. It is the whole song that weaves the meaning of the author. And so it is with this song I left out. It is my favorite song of all. My favorite Christmas song is “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” but the words to the song I love the most are these;

1.   Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heav’n and nature sing,
And heav’n and nature sing,
And heav’n, and heav’n, and nature sing.

2.   Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

3.   No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

4. He rules the world with truth and grace,
   And makes the nations prove
   The glories of His righteousness,
   And wonders of His love,
   And wonders of His love,
   And wonders, wonders, of His love.

         So, we have reached the end of our series. There are, of course, other Christmas hymns that we sing every year that touch our hearts, but these were the favorites. I deeply appreciate your participation in both the naming of your favorites and reading of these little stories. This was, for me, a labor of love. And this just leaves one more thing for me to say;

Merry Christmas, my friends. A new year is upon us, filled with uncertainty. Remember, however, that our joy, the joy that is indescribable, comes from the Lord. Blessings.