NOVEMBER 2005
Dear Mt. Olive
family and friends,
Seeing it on the TV screen made it nauseating. Somehow, there is something very wrong with
this picture. In an eerie scene of
apocalyptic devastation, American tourists whine and bellyache about having a
week’s vacation interrupted by a hurricane.
Such inconvenience they were forced to endure!
Never mind that
surrounding them were tens of thousands of fellow human beings walking around
in shock, having lost their homes, their means of transportation, their jobs,
and everything else they had on planet earth.
Never mind that a plane would soon arrive to take the inconvenienced
tourists back to their beautiful, luxurious homes while these penniless folks
would be forced to live in cardboard boxes.
Poor me because my $6,000 vacation didn’t turn out the way I had
planned!
What made this
picture so repulsive and revolting to me is that I saw myself. I saw yours truly as a member of a society
that has become disgustingly selfish and self centered. We live in the lap of luxury with an
over-abundance of every conceivable thing, yet at the slightest inconvenience
we carry on like whiny, belligerent, spoiled brats.
A reminder is in
order. The Lord has richly blessed our
country for oh so many years for the sake of the Christians who live here. I’m certain of that. Were it not for the believers in
The solemn reality
is that God’s people aren’t acting much like God’s people. Just a quick glance in the mirror reveals a self-centeredness quite comparable to that of our
non-Christian neighbors. This
egotistical, narcissistic, full-of-myself attitude exposes itself in a couple
of crucial areas.
First of all, there
is the area of worship. Worship, by its
very definition, is about the worth-ship of God. It is our loving and merciful God who is most
worthy of our worship and deserving of our praise. True worship is all about God – and not in
the slightest way about me. True worship
is God- centered, God- focused, God-directed.
Yet what have we done? We’ve made
worship all about us. We’ve turned it
into a feel-good experience that is now polarizing families, congregations, and
the entire synod. Because what makes me
feel good may not make you feel good.
Singing a century-old Lutheran choral accompanied by a pipe organ may
make me feel good, but singing a modern praise song led by stringed instruments
and drums may make you feel good.
“Traditional, liturgical worship is the only worship meaningful to me,”
say some. “Non-traditional,
non-liturgical worship is exciting and stimulating,” say others.
Never mind how God
feels!
A gift so dear and precious as divine worship is becoming a
divisive issue that, in some cases, no longer unites God’s people but divides
them. Why? Because in our sinful
self-centeredness, we’ve turned it into just one more thing that is
all-about-me. Bottom line:
Instead of worshipping God, we worship ourselves.
A second area where
this full-of-myself attitude is exposed is in the stewardship of giving. Biblical stewardship is not about giving to
a worthy cause but giving from a grateful heart. A passage like “God loves a cheerful
giver” comes to mind. As Christians,
we are not invited to give to the Lord out of guilt or coercion, but because
our hearts are so overflowing with gratitude that they would burst if they
didn’t give! For well over a century,
our synod and her congregations flourished under a simple, uncomplicated
principle of stewardship: Give freely from a generous heart out
of love to the Lord.
Today the focus has
shifted to – guess where – to me.
Today’s conversations go something like this: “I don’t like what the congregation is doing
with my money so I’m not going to give.” “Until the synod starts spending my
money the way I want and stops wasting it on programs I don’t
approve of, they’re not going to get my money.” To be sure, churches and synods – and every
other organization in this sinful world – will unfortunately, on occasion,
misuse, squander, or waste the resources entrusted to their care. Leaders must be always vigilant to prevent
and avoid abusive spending, and leaders, whether called, elected, or hired, are
the ones responsible for the proper use of all gifts and offerings. The chosen leaders must wisely use the funds
– and repent when they fail to do so, but your responsibility – and mine – is
to give freely, generously, and regularly from grateful and
thankful hearts.
November is the
month of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a
good time to ponder and reflect upon the condition and attitude of our
hearts. It would be wise for all of us
to re-examine our lives in view of the selfish, self-absorbed attitude so
common around us. Perhaps we could ask
ourselves how self-centeredness has impacted our own worship of God and our
personal response to all the blessings of God.
Thanksgiving is a
good time to pause at the blood-stained cross of our Lord Jesus and ponder the
unconditional love He has demonstrated to us from long before the cradle to
well beyond the grave. If we fix our
eyes on Jesus, we’ll come to see once again, that worship is all about Him –
and the outpouring of our offerings are all about Him too, for they flow from
grateful hearts touched by His unending grace.
Indeed, to HIM be the glory! Indeed!
Pastor Carl Henkel