GOD'S MATH

BY STEVE DUNN 

Reading: Luke 2.18-20

  When I was in high school they introduced something called “the new math.” At that point it was from a parallel universe. For my math teacher, Mr. Iams, who was nearing retirement after teaching mathematics for 40 years, it was “math from another planet.” The concept was good. It was trying to help us rethink the way we approached the science of mathematics so that we would be better prepared for the intricacies of the future that would be computers, space travel, and a burgeoning electronics industry. And at that point, the internet was more a concept than a reality—certainly not the life-dominating reality that it is the second decade of the 21st century. 

 Most of us struggled with this new math because we had lived too long with the old math. Our minds found it difficult to wrap around those concepts, let alone do something practical with them. In fact, more than once some of us said, “Do we really need to do it this way?” 

By now most of us are familiar with the Christmas story, of how a virgin conceived by the Holy Spirit so that she might carry the Very Son of God in her womb, of how a cousin in her older age gave birth to the messenger who would prepare the way for the Savior’s message and ministry.

And then there are the improbable events recorded in Luke 2.8-20: There were sheepherders camping in the neighborhood. They had set night watches over their sheep. Suddenly, God’s angel stood among them and God’s glory blazed around them. They were terrified. The angel said, “Don’t be afraid. I’m here to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody, worldwide: A Savior has just been born in David’s town, a Savior who is Messiah and Master. This is what you’re to look for: a baby wrapped in a blanket and lying in a manger.” At once the angel was joined by a huge angelic choir singing God’s praises: Glory to God in the heavenly heights, Peace to all men and women on earth who please him. As the angel choir withdrew into heaven, the sheepherders talked it over. “Let’s get over to Bethlehem as fast as we can and see for ourselves what God has revealed to us.” They left, running, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. Seeing was believing. They told everyone they met what the angels had said about this child. All who heard the sheepherders were impressed. Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself. The sheepherders returned and let loose, glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen. It turned out exactly the way they’d been told! – THE MESSAGE TRANSLATION 

The world would find such an entry for the King of Kings totally out of its frame of understanding. Even today, 2000 years since that moment in history, more than one person would confess, “This does not compute.” Kings come from kings and power comes from the end of a gun. The strong win and the weak—well, they just get walked over. Confession and repentance do not add up in a “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps world.” And that whole virgin thing—it is impossible! Yet the way to eternally living in the Kingdom of God is through humbling yourself and taking on the form of a servant. To gain your life you must give it up. A teenage mother, a backwater town like Bethlehem, a baby born into the poverty of a manger—what can be more humble. 

But in God’s math, what that brings is more precious than anything else in the whole world. © by Steve Dunn

TOM AND THE MENSA SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASS

This post originally appeared in another blog of mine called EASTER PEOPLE.

I once had a church with a very small senior high Sunday School Class. Small, but extraordinary.  They came from two high schools, and the valedictorian of each school was in the class. One other was in the top five of their class. The other two in the top 5%.  All were headed to college, basically on merit scholarships.  One of them was under appointment to the US Naval Academy.

Their teacher was a single mom who was an R.N.  A cancer survivor, she had been abandoned by her husband following her recovery for a trophy wife.  She first worked as a pediatric ICU nurse and when that got to be too much, switched to geriatrics.  A passionate and caring Christian, she was a superb life mentor but by her own admission, outmatched intellectually by her “Mensa Sunday School Class.”

Jan was the teacher’s name.  She believed firmly that Christianity was not about knowledge but application.  Love was not a concept. It was a lifestyle. So she urged her students to adopt a grandfather.

The grandfather was a man named Tom in a nursing home that our church provided ministry.  He had been married but they had no children.  He had outlived his wife and any family he had had.  Tom was very much alone in the world.  And he was quiet, sometimes crochety, not an easy man to like.

The kids were undeterred and regularly visited him after school, or sometimes during the Sunday School hour.  They brought him out of his shell.  He didn’t become a motor mouth, but he did begin to talk a little.  They learned he liked chocolate milk shakes.  So when they would visit, they would bring him a shake.  The cool offering warmed him up.

Tom contracted an illness and after a while was hospitalized.  The hospital was not as convenient as the nursing home, but the kids continue to visit him–sometimes one-on-one, often armed with a milk shake.  As he grew sicker, he grew quieter. Yet Jan and her Mensa Sunday School Class moved beyond the awkwardness to walk through that valley with Tom.

Tom died.  And the nursing home contacted me to do the funeral.  “He has no family,” they said, “but he deserves a decent burial.  His only religious contact is with these kids and you’re their pastor.  Will you do his funeral?”

I agreed.

The funeral was actually held in the chapel of the mausoleum where his remains would be laid to rest.  A cold room, decorated in somber colors, illuminated almost too subtly other than to suggest death.  A couch was placed before Tom’s closed casket, and as his family, the kids crowded with Jan on this oversized piece of upholstered furniture.

As I entered the room, I saw the kids squeezed awkwardly onto that couch. Uncertain about what was happening or what they thought. At the back of the room was someone from the nursing home, standing next to the undertaker.  A sad scene, inviting sadness.

But then God spoke to me, and this is what He prompted me to say.  “Kids, you all know Tom had no family.  No one in this world to love or to be loved by.  And if you kids had not entered into his life there would only be three of us in this room right now–myself, the undertaker, and the lady from the nursing home.  And we are paid to be here.

“But because you entered his life, you became his family.  You are the people who brought love and happiness to his last days.  You are the people that he still mattered to God and that someone cared whether he lived or died.

“Your love and attention for a lonely old man was the best gift he ever received, because you put God’s love into action.

“So on his behalf and in the name of God, thank you. Thank you for being God’s people and Tom’s family.”

As I reflect, I simply ask – is there someone lost and forgotten, abandoned or uncared for, who needs to encounter the love of God with flesh on?  Are you that person?

(C) 2011 by Stephen L Dunn

Permissions: You have blanket permission to reproduce any original post by STEPHEN DUNN on this blog, as long as it is not altered in any way, is not part of a resource for sale, and proper attribution is made to the author.  A link to this blog is appreciated.  A copy of your use is appreciated as well. Send it to sdunnpastor@coglandisville.org

THE HOPE THAT DOES NOT DISAPPOINT US

Reading: 1 Peter 1:3,13

Phillies fans are ecstatic, at least the one fan in my Early Morning Bible Study. Cliff Lee is back in Philadelphia. The Yankee fans are bummed, including the two in my Bible study. The other two uncommitted were nonplussed. I am a Tigers fan who had no expectation of landing Lee. I am just grateful that he is no longer with the Rangers. We'll have to get to World Series to need to worry about Cliff Lee's ridiculously low ERA. (Side note: The Tigers did rough him up for 2 runs in yesterday's spring training contest.)

It is amazing how in the sports world a single player can be identified with tremendous hope. Persons who want to see victory or World Series rings or Super Bowl trophies or World Cups need hope in order to function. Unfortunately it doesn't always turn out that way. (Think Donovan McNabb and Washington Redskins or Brett Farve and New York Jets).

Sports fans(atics) are not the only people who require hope to function. Consider these quotes:

~ To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it. ~Mother Theresa

~ Beware how you take away hope from any human being. ~Oliver Wendall Holmes

~ He who loses money, loses much; He who loses a friend, loses much more; He who loses faith, loses all. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

~ Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up. ~ Annie Lamont

~ Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, sickness and captivity would, without this comfort, be insupportable. ~Samuel Johnson

~ To eat bread without hope is still slowly to starve to death. ~Pearl S. Buck

The Christian faith is all about hope. From its roots in the Old Testament come these words: "The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!” - Lamentations 3:19-24

From the New Testament these: "In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead .. Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed." - 1 Peter 1:3,13

A Christian lives in hope. Not because they want to win but because their lives have been transformed. A Christian believes that despite any short-coming, past failures, ever present sin - that their lives can be new, holy and whole, and eternal because Jesus Christ came into the world and delivered them from sin's penalties and powers by His death on the Cross. And that hope is firmly embedded when he walked out of the Tomb.

This is not a motivation idea for a Christian. It is a reality rooted in an actual historic event. And it is a hope that is further confirmed when we see Christ at the end of this life and this world. Long before Christ, a prophet named Isaiah declared: "but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." - Isaiah 40:31

Genuine Christians are people who possess a living hope in their relationship with Christ and whose lives are shaped by that hope to bring hope to others.

(C) 2011 by Stephen L Dunn

This originally appeared as a post on LIFE MATTERS.  March 2, 2011