DON’T THANK GOD TODAY

I would like to begin with a word of advice. And that is: Don't thank God. Not today, anyway. Tomorrow. The next day; but don't thank God today. Do something else. That something else is to thank all God's helpers: our mom and dad, the teachers we have or had in school; Peter, Paul and Mary; the neighbor down the street; even our brothers and sisters. They are all God's helpers.

For it is all of these people who make us realize that God is what it is all about. God does everything for us, but so much of what God does for us is done indirectly through others. He feeds us and clothes us as we grow up through mom and dad. He teaches us how to live in His world through the words and examples of Miss Simms in first grade and Mr. Johnson in eighth grade.  He encourages us through the examples of his saints and enlivens us through the music of his singers and the paintings of his artists. God works through others most of the time. Sure, in a pinch, God does it all by himself. But by and large God works through his children -- through you and through me.

For example: Is that old but warm coat you decided to get one more year out of still hanging in the closet from last year when you didn't get that year out of it that you said you would? Today would be a good day to take it to someone who needs it. That's God taking care of his children through his children. Matter of fact, the only way that God can and will see to it that that cold, little old lady has a warm coat to wear is through one of us getting it to her. God does not work like Cinderella's Fairy Godmother and wave a magic wand and poof!! new coat. We have to be that real Godchild who works, not magic, but love.

The Apostle John tells us that God is Love and he or she who lives in love, lives in God and God lives in that person. When we do something loving, it is God living in us who does it. And when someone does something loving for us, it is God living in the other who does it. Sometimes we forget about the God living in us and in others.

We must not. We need to spend some time, you and I, thinking about how much God really does love us: how God gave his son to us to live and die and be raised up -- all for us, all because God loves us. But as great an act of love that Jesus' death on the cross was for us, it would all be in vain if God did not continue to love us in those around us and love us in ourselves.

Jesus's death on the cross forgives all our sins. His resurrection from the dead gives us eternal life, even though we really don't deserve it. Those are great and fantastic gifts. But the greatest gift God gives us every day is his continual love for us that is shown to us in and through other people: mom and dad and teacher and friend and neighbor.

Knowing that I am forgiven and will have eternal life is great. But knowing that I am loved is absolutely necessary. I know God loves me because I see him loving me through you. You and I are called to make God's love known to others by our very lives. Thank God for his love. But don't thank God today. Thank those who love us through him.

VIRTUE

"Virtue is its own punishment", says Denniston, whoever Denniston may be. Obviously he is a pessimist, albeit a realist, and that for two reasons. First of all, those who do good are always suspect. "Nobody is that good," we say. "What's her motive?" we wonder. Somehow we seem to get the impression that people are good either because they are afraid of being bad or because they want to get something in return for their good actions – something even better.

But is that really true for you and for me?  Granted, we are not always all that good. Granted, there is a little sin in each one of us, a little too much perhaps. But we are not good simply because we are afraid of what will happen to us were we to stray from the path of righteousness. Let's give ourselves and our God a little credit. We are basically good people who do good because that is the way God created us. That's the way we are.

And, granted, sometimes we do have ulterior motives for being good, or at least better than we might be. For children it is the Santa Claus Syndrome: "Better watch out...Santa Claus is coming to town" For adults, it is the Selfish Syndrome: "I want something I may not really deserve, all else being equal."

So, in all honesty, we are good sometimes for the wrong reasons. We are virtuous sometimes for other than the right or best reasons. But that is no reason not to be virtuous. Contrary to Denniston, virtue is its own reward: just knowing we are doing what we should be doing makes us feel good. And isn't that sometimes, even always, reward enough for us??

Denniston is a realist, secondly, however, because he realizes that those who do good are called upon to do good again...and again and again. Denniston might call such people "suckers." I suspect God would call them Christians, call them his children.  Yes, if we do good for others, we get a reputation. People begin to expect it of us. Churches and pastors who are generous in helping people who knock on their doors soon find a line of people looking for help. But is helping another person, deserving or not, a form of punishment? Really?

If we took Denniston seriously, the only reason to be virtuous is so that we can get something out of our actions. Virtue would not be its own reward. On the contrary, if we listen to Denniston, we would be virtuous because we were looking for a reward. Obviously, I don't buy that. Virtue is its own reward.

All you and I need do to verify that is look back upon those times when we were good, selfless. Selfishness, on the other hand is its own punishment. All we need do to verify that is remember those times when we have been selfish.

If we are looking for rewards for our actions, there is only one way to go: the way of the virtuous, the way of Jesus which, yes, is sometimes the way of the cross. But that, too, that cross, is the way to the reward in this life and the life to come. The choice is ours.

TO WHOM ARE WE LISTENING?

Jean Kerr tells the story. Her young child came home from school all teary-eyed and sad. When she asked what was the matter, he told her about the play he was in in grade school. The play was about Adam and Eve and he was Adam. Jean had a quizzical look on her face and asked, "Why so sad?  That's wonderful. You have the best part. You are the leading man." "Maybe so," her son replied, "but the snake has all the lines."

That is a funny story. And it's a good reminder to you and me. The problem that I have – and I suspect, the problem you have – is not so much that the snake has all the lines. It is rather that we believe all the lines that the snake feeds us. Remember the snake's first line in the Bible, in Genesis? "If you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will become like God." Now that is a classic line. Who wouldn't like to be like God? Imagine the power to eliminate disease and famine and poverty. The power to make everything right. The power, the power, the power. Even if we use all that power correctly, it's a wonderful thought, a wonderful temptation.

Like Adam and his wife, we, too, bought the snake's line, all of it: hook, line and sinker. We grabbed the bait. And we got hooked. Boy did we get hooked. And we've been swallowing the bait ever since, choking on it. You see, back in the very beginning man and woman did not need to become like God. They already were. That is how God created them. But by doing whatever they did, by buying the snake's line, they became unlike God. Now, ever since then, we have been trying to become like God again.

Becoming like God, however, is not, no matter how it seems, having illusions of grandeur. Nothing of the sort. Becoming like God, becoming perfect as God is perfect, is what being human is all about. Once mankind bought the snake's line, once we became imperfect, we could no longer be and no longer were perfect.

The Old Testament is a record of the beginning of that journey on the road back to perfection, that trek down the path to becoming like God once again. The journey, of course, ends in Jesus, who through his death and resurrection gives us the means to perfection. The only hindrance is that whereas in the beginning perfection was a fact, was a reality in this life, that is no longer so. We now can become perfect only in and through our own death and resurrection.

That may be unfortunate because it then becomes all too easy to not try. I mean, why make the effort when we won't see the results, when we won't see perfection, in this life? Why indeed? If we buy that reasoning, we've swallowed the snake's line once again.

The reality of the situation is to understand that even the attempt is worth the effort; the struggle itself is worthwhile, that carrying a cross is good and necessary. That's another line, of course. It can be grabbed onto or it can be passed up. But whose line are we going to believe, the snake's or Jesus'? Seems to me that the snake has had all the lines long enough. It's time we started listening to the Writer, the Director, the Playwright in the drama of Salvation instead of listening to one of the actors.

A BIZARRE REQUEST

As I walked into her hospital room, she said to me, "Sit down so that I can see you better." So I did. But before I could say much of anything or even ask how she was doing, she said, "I have a bizarre request." When I started to smile, she asked why I was laughing. "I'm just wondering what you mean by 'bizarre'," I replied. "Get a paper and a pencil and I'll tell you," she said. So I did.

"These are the songs I want played at my funeral," she said. "First, I want 'The Poor People of Paris' before the service starts. Then I want 'I Wish You Love.' That's were the kids cry. Then I want 'Amazing Grace.' Then you, meaning me, get to say a few words." She caught my smile but said nothing. "Then I want 'The Entertainer.' as they go out. Life is for the living and I don't want anyone dragging their feet at my funeral."

No one did either. When Trudie died six days later, she was ready. Her family and I spent those six days alternately remembering and forgetting the tune to "Poor People of Paris." It became a running joke, and not gallows humor either. Trudie wouldn't stand for that. At the funeral, I had to play the tune over a tape recorder. When I announced the song that I had just played, the expression on the faces of the people present said, "I knew

I heard that song somewhere." And when I told them why it was played, they also had a knowing look. Typical Trudie. The kids cried in the proper place. I said two words, give or take a few hundred. And we went to the cemetery humming Scott Joplin's music. Some tears, yes; but mostly it was good feeling and joy and happiness.

Bizarre? Depends. You can't find two of those songs in any church hymnal. It wasn't bizarre music, just not typical. It certainly was different, but "different" is not a synonym for "bizarre." What made Trudie's funeral different was not so much the music but the fact that she actually selected it. What was even more different, maybe even bizarre, meaning "remarkable," is that she was willing, even wanted, in fact, to talk about her funeral while she was alive, albeit on her death bed.

That is remarkable, and, all right, bizarre. We just don't like to talk about death, you and I; death in general and our own death in particular. That is bizarre, weird, you name it. A lot of us have a great difficulty simply writing a will so afraid are we to even broach the subject of our own mortality. And age makes no difference. Young or old, death is a subject we avoid even more than we avoid talking about religion and politics.

It does no good to ask "why?". We really can't explain why we avoid the subject of death whether we are in the prime of life or in the prime of death. Death frightens us because it is an unknown. Of course ten minutes from now is just as an unknown even though we might not admit it. Now I am not advocating that we start talking about death, although there is nothing wrong with that. Nor am I proposing that we sit down and decide what music we want played at our funeral, although that, too, would be a good idea. The fact is, I am not proposing anything. I just thought you might like to know how someone I knew approached and prepared for her own death.  There was nothing bizarre about it.

I LOST BECAUSE THEY CHEATED

It’s an interesting time in which we are now living. But, then, interesting may not be the correct word. How about frightening? The mindset for so many is that if we lost, whatever it is that we lost, it was not our fault. It was because someone else, or many other someones. did something, somehow in some way, to make sure we came out on the short end of the stick and now it’s payback-time. That scares me.

Sometimes the loser or losers are correct. The Black Sox Scandal back in the early 20^th century and the Houston Astro cheating a few years back are testaments that cheaters sometimes win. But what price that kind of victory? The players on both of those teams who engaged in the cheating were and will be marked for life.

This mindset that “We was robbed!”, as the old Brooklyn Dodger mantra had it years ago, is still very much prevalent. The last presidential election is a glaring manifestation of this false belief, but it is belief nevertheless and one that seems not to want to go away quietly. In fact, it is not going away and certainly not quietly. I just shake my head in sad disbelief and wonder why. That mindset interests me but is also frightens me.

Perhaps it goes back to a time not so long ago and, unfortunately is still present, that everyone wins; everyone gets a trophy. I can’t image my Little League baseball manager giving each of us a trophy because we finished dead last with a 3 and 18 record. We enjoyed our few wins, moped when we lost, but quickly got over it. It was the simple joy of playing the game that mattered. Winning wasn’t the be all or end all. Now that’s what it seems to be. What is even worse is that we get angry and act out to the harm of others.

As Christians our hero was considered a very big loser, even among his closet friends. He was kind and caring and loving and healing and forgiving, a real hero; and yet they hung him out to dry on a cross. And when Peter tried to defend him, he told him to put down the sword. Some winner he turned out to be! Some winner he did turn out to be! But the victory came in ways no one expected: resurrection and new life.

But that is how all seeming and even real loses turn to victories: through resurrection and new life. They don’t come from trying to undo the past, take away the victory from someone else and claim it should have been ours. It comes from acknowledging the loss, whatever that loss was, and doing what needs to be done to find resurrection and new life in the days and weeks and years to come.

There will always be winners and losers. Reflecting on our past, we learned more from our defeats than from our victories. My team lost all those games back then not because the other teams cheated but because we weren’t a very good baseball team. Resurrection and new life only come from loss because that is often the only way we learn. Cheaters, in the end, never win. Losers usually do if we are willing to admit defeat and move on.

ACTING OUR AGE

At one time another, perhaps more times than we would like to admit, have been told, "Act your age!" We were doing something silly, maybe downright immature, and an elder called us to task by reminding us that someone of our years does not act in that sort of manner. They were right; but they were also wrong, for the most part most of the time.

So, too, would someone be wrong if we were told to "Act like a Christian" when catching us doing something that is unchristian. You see, the problem we all have is not so much in acting our age or acting like a Christian. We do that all of the time. I act like a seventy-nine-year-old, almost all of the time.  What I don't always do is react as a Christian. We all know what actions are demanded of us both by society and by ourselves according to our age. We don't expect a six-year-old to act like one who is sixty – and vice versa.

With age and maturity come a knowledge of how to act, how to live. The same is true for us acting like a Christian. Six-year-olds and sixty-year-olds act differently. The emphasis is not on acting, as in faking it, pretending, playing at it. It is on acting as in actions, Our actions, what we do, should be done according to what our age and maturity require.

Our reactions, often, are not. All too often we tend to react, not according to our age, not according to our faith. Someone hurts us and we react quickly. And in that reaction we turn, not the other cheek but the back of our hand or the backside of our character. We do and say things that, given time, given thought, we would not say or do. Reactions, all too often, are passionate responses to a situation.

What all this means is that we must react like a Christian. Our quick response should be the same as our slower, thought-out, reflective response. If that were always the case, we would save ourselves much grief and torment. But it is not always the case. I suspect that in the vast majority of the situations where we do something selfish, sinful, foolish, what we do is react in an unchristlike way. They are reactions of passion. We get hurt and we immediately react. We become defensive. We pout. We shout. We repay in kind or worse.

Acting as Jesus would, responding as Jesus would have us, is not in the forefront of our thinking at that moment of real hurting, at that moment of our life. What we wind up doing then is something stupid...and paying for it for a long time because the person whom we are reacting to reacts to our immature, unchristlike reaction -- and then the whole vicious cycle goes on and on and on.

There will probably never be a time when we always say and do what we should.  We will never always react as a Christian. But that does not mean that we give up. We must keep working at it through prayer, good works, reading of Scripture – through doing all those actions we know are necessary in order to grow up into a Christian person. When we fail, we ask for forgiveness and start over. When we succeed, we simply thank God for he is the One, through his Son and Spirit, who enables us to react our age, to react our faith.

ALEXA

No, not that one. Not the one that can tell you the time, play a favorite sone, show you a recipe to make chocolate chip cookies, turn your lights off and on – do lots of things almost beyond your imagination, at least beyond a seventy-nine-year-old’s one-time imagination. No, not that Alexa. This one: the one who was my 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM nurse for the three nights I was in the hospital to have a pace maker installed in my body. That Alexa.

She is in her mid-twenties, a very recent graduate from nursing school. She is an RN and will soon begin studies to obtain her BSN. She was once very overweight having lost 150 pounds in the past year. She told me that most of her friends hardly recognize her now. I told her she should be very proud and she said she was. I was proud for her having been on countless diets over all these years, knowing how difficult it is to not only stay on one through it but to maintain the weight afterwards. That Alexa.

The difference in the two is, of course, profound. While the virtual one can keep us informed and up to date on myriads of subjects, it cannot provide what we really need when we really need it: TLC, tender, loving care. That is what my Alexa provided. And it wasn’t easy, not because I was a bad or contrary patient but because she was/is such a loving and caring nurse. She always apologized for waking me up in the middle of the night, several times at least, to take my vital signs or hand me a pill the doctor ordered. She did not have to, of course, but she did, and I always told her that she didn’t have to. She was taking care of me. What was there to apologize for anyway?! That Alexa.

She worked three straight twelve-hour shifts, actually twelve-and-a-half, because she and the nurse she replaced and the one who replaced her always came into your room to discuss your situation before handing on nursing duties to the other. It was comforting to be in attendance as they conversed. They cared. And it was not as if my Alexa cared more than the nurses who worked that day shift. They were simply busier running here and there as their patients were being moved from here to there on a constant basis as I was on the cardiology floor and every other person on my floor had serious heart problems. Mine was simply a tune-up, if you will.

For my Alexa her job is her ministry, her vocation. In fact, it isn’t a job. It is easy to spot the difference in any field: for all-too-many what one does is simply a job, a pay check. For many others, like Alexa and, truly all the staff who attended me, what they did was, yes, a pay check, but it was also their vocation. Even the three transporters who wheeled me here and there for tests loved their job. Imagine that!

I am not saying that my Alexa was more special than all the other nurses who ministered to me. It is simply to say that it is heart-warming and uplifting to have had the opportunity to get to know, even in such a small way, someone who is a true caregiver. There are millions of them and we sadly take them so much for granted. No virtual Alexa, no matter how smart, can replace my Alexa. She was such a blessing and I will always be grateful and thankful for her.